While there is so much I could tell you about this wonderful and powerful woman, I know that the best way to give you the insight into her character and spirit that you deserve as readers is to let her work speak for itself.
Natives hear “Indigenous people can’t use modern tech then” when we protest the religious and cultural bigotry of those who misuse the sacred objects of several hundred separate and unique Indigenous American cultures but that is nothing more than an ignorant lie that hinges on the bigoted myth that Indigenous Americans played no part in tech development when the fact is Natives played a huge part in technology development from day one and we still do today.
CW: suicide ideation, physical, emotional, mental, sexual abuse. Someone asked me about James Cameron and his controversial statements about Lakota and the new Avatar movie. Up until then, I had re-posted some things, but hadn’t said anything yet. I hadn’t planned to until things settled in the apartment, but that could be months; see last … Read more
In just a few days, our panel “Cultural Appropriation: a fixable cultural crime” will become available at SXSW Online 2021. The conference itself will be digital and our panel will be available to view by attendees on March 16th, from 9:15am to 10:10am CST. “Counting coup” refers to a practice by some tribes and cultures … Read more
Not too long ago, Rick Riordan, author of the popular Percy Jackson series, posted a blog about a character, Piper McClean, who is “part Cherokee”. The reason he wrote the blog was in response to backlash over the representation of the Cherokee character and the feathers that she wore in her hair. By the end … Read more
On August 30th, Dior tweeted about the newest version of a long standing scent titled, “Sauvage”. In the ten second clip, a Native fancy dancer danced in slow motion while Johnny Depp played guitar. The backlash was immediate and spread quickly through Native Twitter and beyond. There are some very big issues involved with this … Read more
Appropriating Indigenous cultures has been going on for a very long time. Anytime something appropriating Indigenous cultures or racist comes up, it doesn’t matter what Natives might say in protest, most often the person doing the wrong thing claims it’s to “honor” us. Much the same way people think that Native mascots honor us. It … Read more
There’s a few stereotypes about non-Natives that many of us roll our eyes at to this day. Claiming to be Native based on family lore, ‘I have Native in me’, ‘I’m part Native/tribe’ – ‘I’m a descendant of Pocahontas’. In the real world, when I’m among the general public, it’s often that, one hundred percent … Read more
Between Facebook and Twitter, there were plenty of video snippets shared of a white woman who had taken someone’s eagle feather bustle, slung it over her shoulders and danced Costner style with it. Just a PSA: don’t do what this lady did pic.twitter.com/v1kodaKw1r — Kayak (@Ms_Yellowhorse) March 24, 2019 While it’s obviously wrong to take … Read more
Image from Twitter account @MikaelaPaw On March 16th, a tweet from the account Turning Point USA made a bold claim that ‘if you want to see an example of failed socialism, visit an Indian reservation’. It included a video tagging the account @/MikaelaPaw. It also included a truncated video of Russel Means, a well known … Read more