The first Super Bowl with pics

On  February 5, 2017, Buzzfeed posted an article about the first Super Bowl along with a number of photos. This included a couple of pics depicting a group of young women wearing faux Northern Plains style headdresses and engaged in a mockery dance. While the photos were interesting enough and showing that cultural appropriation was a long held tradition of the R*skins, some of the comments revealed just how much it’s still accepted by non-Natives.

Saw it on Facebook with these gems. “…having a great time at no one’s expense…” “No one was mocking or making fun of Native Americans.” 😂 if only she could hear herself. https://t.co/TM64rDlF59 pic.twitter.com/mYkZ64P7m8

— Ali Watson (@aliwatson117) February 5, 2018

One comment says, “I am the woman (girl then) whose profile with the Indian Headdress is featured among the 26 amazing First Super Bowl Pictures. I am also the woman (girl then) shown dancing in the middle of the second picture featuring the Dance/Drill Team from Santa Barbara CA. called The Barbarettes. To all of the bleeding hearts out there that were outraged at the “perceived” racisim – STOP! We were a group of 12 high school girls just having a great time at no one’s expense who were asked to perform during the quarter breaks, mainly because our routine featured these beautiful head dresses and the Kansas City Chiefs were one of the football teams. We’ve come a long way since then and political correctness is a good thing but I can assure you, no one was mocking or making fun of Native Americans. Sheesh!!”

The photo of the mockery dance suggests otherwise, but still. A reply follows as:

“Exactly! I was a young girl myself during those times, and that’s the way things were. We just didn’t know any better – now we do, which is a good thing. Even Cher had worn some ridiculous get-up when she performed the song, “Half Breed” on TV. The fact that we’ve “come a long way since then” speaks volumes about how we made the effort to educate ourselves about societal ills, and we DID something about it back then, too.”

We all remember the kerfuffle with Cher and that get up… More on that to come.