I dropped her off this morning and saw girls (and boys) wearing grass skirts, some of them with coconut bras too. I’m not sure what else is going on, but it doesn’t seem very respectful of a native culture that we have seriously fucked over. Would they have a “Native American Day” and let kids come in wearing feathered headdresses?
Or am I reading too much into it?
But again, the U.S. didn’t commit genocide against Germany.
Yeah I guess not. I don’t think that’s a qualifier for cultural appropriation though.
Well no, I think that literally appropriating their culture by wearing their ceremonial clothing is a qualifier for that. That it’s appropriating a culture that America committed genocide against is just the icing on the cake.
Britain engaged in a strategy of ‘terror bombing’, the deliberate murder of German civilians, during WW2, killing over a million people. If a Brit wears a lederhosen, is that offensive? What about a Russian? French folk?
The present is more important than the past. In the past, we’ve all killed each other in horrific, cruel ways. What matters is the present - Native tribes often still use the national dress they’re depicted with (without much concern for accuracy in most cases) in important cultural folkways, and Native Americans in general still suffer from severe discrimination. For that reason, not past genocides (though the past genocides are obviously important to recognize and acknowledge), is tribal ‘costume’ inappropriate and insensitive.
Indigenous Americans often get pretty offended when white people wear their traditional clothing. I’m not sure why this isn’t the same.
If you mean lederhosen, then the second paragraph explains why it’s different. If you mean the grass skirts, then I can’t comment, as I don’t know if there’s a ceremonial component to grass skirts that would make wearing one offensive.
I meant grass skirts.