If you are a white, 50-something man in America, you are probably a cultural appropriator. So, I guess I’m guilty. The exception is when I wear my kilt and Jacobite shirt to the local Scottish Festival. And before you ask, yes, I’ve got the legs for it. Aside from my Scots heritage, I have some British, Welsh, German, and even a dash of Viking in me. So I had to pick one. And being a Viking re-enactor is expensive. But in the past, I have been accused of cultural appropriation, and this was decades ago before the phrase appeared on the Left’s word-of-the-day toilet paper.
My first marriage was to a Native American woman. Her father was the president of the local Native American Church. I used to go with him to get wood for his sweat lodge and help him set up the tipi for church meetings. I did not attend the services since they are uniquely Native American, and far too many white people are interested in the church because they want to try peyote.
I even had an “Indian name.” No, it wasn’t something like “Standing Elk” or “Brave Bear.” It was (and I am unsure of the spelling) Naduwe. Roughly translated, it means “Buying It” or “I’m Buying It.” My father-in-law bestowed that name on me at a Gourd Dance when I marveled at someone’s elaborate regalia. It is what is referred to as a “baby name” or nickname. It implied that I was naive enough to believe just about anything anyone told me. Granted, it wasn’t all that dignified, but it was legit. I wanted to be a part of the family, so my father-in-law put together regalia for me to be a Southern Straight Dancer. That regalia does not require eagle feathers. Despite what the hippie “shaman” down the street may tell you in his weed-induced haze, it is against federal law for a non-Indian to possess eagle or raptor feathers.
As you can tell by my photo, I definitely do not look like I could pass for Native American. And I am not one of those white people who claims that he is 1/175th Cherokee. One year, during the Fourth of July Pow Wow, I was getting ready for the Grand Entry when a woman with a distinctly Upper-Midwest accent asked me what tribe I was from. I told her, “Northern White Boy.” When the poor thing said she was going home to look that tribe up, I had to stop her and explain I was joking. But an encounter with a dancer was quite different. He was very upset that I, a white man, was not only dancing but wearing regalia, and he let me know it. After I explained my situation to him, he walked off but was still suspicious.
I can’t say I blame him. There are plenty of “wannabes” out there who have no ties to Native culture other than having watched “Dances With Wolves” 40 or 50 times. Or who have highjacked native traditions because they want to be counter-cultural or, in some cases, just want to use peyote. Or they see the chance to make a buck or garner social credit. (Elizabeth Warren, please pick up a white courtesy phone.) My situation was unique. And since that marriage ended, I have not danced or been to a sweat lodge. My ties to that culture ended with my divorce, and personally, I do not believe that revisiting those things would be appropriate now.
Last month, Catherine reported that the Southern York County School District board in Pennsylvania voted to restore a logo that depicted a native Susquehannock warrior. Some Native Americans were up in arms. But others in attendance were fine with the idea and were sick of seeing their culture erased from the national consciousness. For the record, when I lived on the reservation, I saw tribal members wearing Washington Redskins coats and hats. I’ll let the Democrats tell them how wrong they were.
In a similar vein, Fox Digital has an interesting piece about how more Native Americans are over the mascot/logo imbroglio. Below are some quotes from the story about a mascot change at the high school in Cedar City, Utah. The mascot used to be the Redmen.
“It was an honor to be called the Redmen,” Julia Casuse, a “full-blooded Navajo” and graduate of Cedar City High School, told Fox News Digital.
The silversmith said she tells visitors at the family’s shop, Navajo Crafting Co., “I’m a Redmen through and through.”
The school’s nickname is now the Reds.
Eunice Davidson, a Dakota Sioux and president of the Native American Guardians Association (NAGA), told Fox News Digital, “It’s a terrible injustice to these communities,”
She and others claim the decisions to remove Native American images, nicknames, and logos are made by local school boards, which are often under pressure from well-funded outside forces.
The decisions never have popular support,” said Davidson, whose organization is based in North Dakota.
“The taxpayer is being shunned and the school boards don’t care anymore. It’s Marxism and it’s taken over the school boards.”
The grassroots group VOICE claims that 79% of local residents voted in support of the Redmen in a recent Change.org survey.
Native Americans aren’t actually red. The only time I saw red Native Americans was when I was working on a wildfire. A pilot botched a retardant drop and clobbered a BIA crew at the other end of the fire. I got hit, too. So that’s more cultural appropriation for you, I suppose.
The point is that individual Native Americans are as unique as anyone in any other demographic. They are human beings. Some may be offended by mascots and logos. Others may not care. Some may even feel a sense of pride. I once asked one of my sisters-in-law, “What am I supposed to call you? Are you Native Americans? Indigenous Americans? Aboriginal Americans? First Nations people?” She shrugged and said, “Just call us Indians.”
Scratch beneath the surface of any people group, and you will find some unsavory things. No ethnic group has cornered the markets on nobility or savagery. That pertains not just to the history of America but the world. The Left believes it has a monopoly not just on thought or policy but on people. If your local neighborhood Karen can relieve herself of her white guilt by screaming at someone while juggling her Stanley, Starbucks, and iPhone on her way to her hot yoga class, she will. Ditto whatever holdouts from the 60s who are still miraculously clinging to life. Their outrage and your implied guilt are their redemption. I won’t pretend that no tribal members are offended over Native American mascots or nicknames. But not all of them are. And we should let all of these people speak for themselves. If we don’t, we are asserting that they are not people but products. And I believe that is the alleged basis of the Left’s original complaint.