Counting down to counting digital coup at SXSW
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
Vote for our SXSW panel proposal!
This is our third year of proposing Native content and inclusion for the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) conference. Until 2018, I don’t recall seeing any Indigenous content from SXSW or by topic in panels. Our first year in 2018 of applying gave us some insight about how little visibility that modern Natives have in … Read more
It is not just “a feather in her hair”
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
Depp Sauvage: the scent of appropriation
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
2020 SXSW Panel Picker Proposal on Cultural Appropriation
Cultural Appropriation: are you guilty? Click here to vote now! Last year, a little birdy at SXSW told me that the panel submission of “Playing Indian & Other Racist Nonsense” was too niche of a topic. That thought has echoed with me to this day. Too niche for an immense society with the population of … Read more
All your eagles are belong to us
Many Natives in the U.S. were not aware that a petition has been put forth that pushes for loosening and changing regulations over who can request and possess feathers and bird parts from protected species, such as eagles. The original Facebook post indicated that the original deadline was July 1st to submit comments. It was … Read more
Photographers are to blame
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
Pretendian @kodeerants on Twitter
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
White Clay Wendy mock dances at 2019 DMPW
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
Kaya Jones and a Pretendian ambassadorship
On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Kaya Jones basically told Natives to ‘get over genocide’. In the same video, she complains about how Natives aren’t helping her in her ambassadorship, that slavery had to happen in this country and that if she were in redface, maybe Natives would accept her and then still asks Natives to contact … Read more