I am Iñupiaq-Athabaskan registered tribally and federally with my village in Kaktovik, Alaska. I live in Colrain, Mass. and consider Brattleboro my adopted community of choice.
The story fueling this letter began with much anticipation for the Holly Days Holly Nights celebration on Dec. 2.
After a wonderful dinner,we set out for shopping right away. Our first stop was at our seven-year-old daughter's beloved store, Beadniks.
I have seen Native American–inspired beadwork and even a buckskin shirt hanging on the wall for years there. But what I saw left me flabbergasted.
There, displayed with pirate swords, sheriff badges, and cap guns, was a basket of fluorescent pink feather headdresses.
One might assume this is a harmless display of “pretend” dress-up toys.
It is not. It is humiliating, offensive, and racist.
How?
• Selling a headdress as a dress-up toy is promoting stereotyping of Native American cultures. This perpetuates the myth that Indians wear feather headdresses and war bonnets.
Such toys suggest that Native Americans are in the same group of make-believe characters such as fairies and pirates. Putting Native Americans in a place of existing only in history and fantasy is extremely damaging to our children.
Stereotyping and caricatures of Natives do nothing to represent the more than 560 distinct cultures in the U.S. and more than 630 in Canada who are thriving, who dress in mainstream clothing, and who do not wear traditional clothing every day.
* A feather headdress is a spiritual and religious item. It is meant for men to wear, it is often hard-earned, and it has significant meaning behind it, such as achievements, honor, and respect.
Headdresses are considered sacred and even used as protection when worn during ceremony. They are not toys. They are not costumes. “Toys” like this take away the honor and respect. I recommended to the clerk to include technicolor Pontiff hats and some bright yarmulkes to go with the display.
• It is racist because you are singling out a race. You are belittling and collapsing a race into a small package for purchase and in doing so you have made it okay to portray the people who are members of that race as you see fit.
This assertion of power is fanning the flames of colonization; it makes it okay to take land from a people who are a figment of imagination, from a proud race that is no longer (in your line of sight).
• It is not okay to dress up as another race. Would you don a black face and carry a lantern for Halloween? I should hope not.
• This does not honor Native Americans. This is shameful. This disrespects our cultures at large, gives our children a sense that they are seen as the caricatures they see in society, and demonstrates the unequal power of white colonization versus Native culture.
Do you really think anyone has the right to represent another's culture for fun? I am not honored. I am offended.
And my talk with the clerk pointing this out? How did that go?
He commented that “as a boy he loved getting feather headdresses” and pretend to be Indian, shrugging his shoulders with indifference. Apathy.
To top things off, I had a small purchase and as I was rung up at the register, and before I paid, I mentioned the Holly Nights discount. I apologized for leaving my flyer at home, but the lady ringing me up would not give me the discount.
At my next stop down the street, they happily told me that everything was discounted, and that all the stores should have discounted what was printed - flyer or no flyer in hand.
No more Beadniks for our family, thanks.