Cultural Appropriation Cracker.

a response to postsatire’s ‘charming’ combination of whitesplaining and mansplaining in a discussion on rape..

ayiman:

custerdiedforyoursins:

weetz:

postsatire:

O.K.

1. This is the tumblr machine. No one is attacking you personally, or your mother. Also, all those CAPITAL LETTERS make your contribution, such as it is, difficult to read.

2. The fact that horrible things happened to your mother is horrible, but it doesn’t affect whether or not you’re making any sense.

3. This photo seems to be claiming that dressing in a sexualized version of Native American-style clothing leads to the rape of Native American women. That’s the message. I utterly reject that message. I’m not sure about the other rape blogs, but I’ve put a lot of time and effort into trying to convince people that the way a woman dresses is unconnected to whether or not she gets raped. I should hope that’s as true for Native Americans as it is for everyone else.

4. If a grown woman dresses in a sexualized version of a schoolgirl outfit, does that lead to increased rates of pedophilia? If you said yes, you’re an idiot and you have no business adopting an opinion on this issue.

5. The sexual assault of Native Americans is a serious problem. It is not connected in any way with people wearing feathers or trying to be cutesy with stereotypical Native American apparel. If you believe that the problem of rape among Native American women is serious, then please offer some serious solutions, because honestly, right now you’re just typing a passionately-held opinion into the tumblr machine.

6. For a start, very much unlike your post, this article from N.O.W. and this article (among literally hundreds of others) do an honest job of nailing down the causes and possible solutions to the very real problem of sexual assault among Native American women. Notice how none of them - NOT A SINGLE ONE - says anything about people wearing Indian-style clothes in a sexually suggestive way. Ask yourself why that might be.

7. If you want to help, if you really want to do something instead of getting angry at some random asshole on the internet, instead of shouting your badly-researched opinions at people, instead of getting into some debate with me that you will lose because I’m smarter than you: don’t answer any more posts, quit getting angry, and send a check to:

Pretty Bird Woman House
P.O. 596
McLaughlin SD 57642

PayPal: littleshield@lakotanetwork.com

It’s a shelter for Native American women who are victims of sexual abuse. It’s run by Native American women, they teach women about their rights and how to prosecute cases, they develop relationships with law enforcement; you know, all the things you and I are not doing. And they sure as hell need money more than you do.

I AM SOOO GLAD YOU’RE SOOOO KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT ABUSE AGAINST NATIVE WOMEN AND WHERE IT COMES FROM, TO THE POINT WHERE YOU ‘UTTERLY REJECT’ HISTORY AND THINK YOU’RE ENTITLED TO YOUR OPINION, OR THAT YOU CAN TELL ME WHAT TO THINK AND HOW TO FEEL. 

WAY TO BE OPPRESSIVE. I ALSO REMEMBER YOU CROPPING UP IN SOME OTHER INCREDIBLY RACIST CONVERSATIONS WHERE YOU ALSO FELT ENTITLED AND TOLD SOME OTHER NATIVE PEOPLE ON HERE HOW TO FEEL. YOU’RE RIGHT. MY MOTHER WASN’T A VICTIM OF INCEST BECAUSE OF STEREOTYPES, SHE WAS A VICTIM BECAUSE THE RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SYSTEM LEFT A GAPING HOLE IN HER FAMILY. MY BAD.

BY THE WAY, I STOPPED READING AFTER ‘I UTTERLY REJECT’ BECAUSE APPARENTLY YOU CAN REJECT HISTORY AND STATISTICAL FACT AND SOMEHOW PEOPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT YOUR OPINION. BYE NOW!

OH PS- HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT MY USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS IS… IRRELEVANT, THANKS THOUGH, FOR YOUR INVALID OPINION!

APPLAUSE, IGNORANT WHITE PEOPLE ON PARADE, ONCE AGAIN TELLING NATIVE PEOPLE HOW TO FEEL BECAUSE THAT’S NOT SOMETHING THAT’S BEEN HAPPENING SINCE CONTACT.

Surefire, foolproof way to prove you’re a fucking asshole and don’t need to be a part of any conversation on race: reject what a Native woman is telling you about abuse against Native women.

REPRODUCING THESE SAME OLD STEREOTYPES OF NATIVE WOMEN AS SEXUAL OBJECTS REINFORCES THESE IDEAS. IF AN IDEA IS REINFORCED, IT GROWS STRONGER.

NATIVE WOMEN ARE LARGELY IGNORED. WHEN WE ARE MENTIONED IT IS ONLY AS “SQUAWS” OR A SEXUAL OBJECT TO BE TAKEN AND USED BY WHITE MEN.

THESE ARE THE CAPTIONS ON EVERY PICTURE ABOUT SEXUALIZED IMAGES OF NATIVE WOMEN HERE ON TUMBLR, BUT YOU MUST HAVE MISSED THAT, SO I’LL REPEAT: ONE THIRD OF NATIVE WOMEN WILL BE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED IN THEIR LIVES. ONE THIRD- INCLUDING WOMEN ON RESERVATIONS AND WOMEN OFF RESERVATIONS. 86% OF THE TIME IT WILL BE BY A NON-NATIVE.

THAT’S A PRETTY STRONG ENDORSEMENT OF THE IDEA THAT THESE TYPES OF IMAGES MAKE THE CULTURE THIS IS POSSIBLE IN STRONGER.

so sit the fuck down and quit acting like you know more or have a more important opinion than us, postsatire. you don’t.

Postsatire’s amazing ability to project such infuriating smugness over the internet is so beyond my ken that it might actually be magic.

How does he do it?  How does he believe that his opinion (as a white man) is worth any more than that of (WoC) victims of sexual abuse?  Why does this complete piece of shit feel the need to reduce this to a debate where his only desired outcome is to establish his self-proclaimed intellectual superiority?

Why, for that matter, does this fuckhead feel like it’s important to overawe an obviously upset woman with the power of his “intellect.”

 instead of getting into some debate with me that you will lose because I’m smarter than you

This is what these concern trolls are about, you piece of shit.  This is what they’ve always been about, and this is what they’ll always be about.  This is you, a white man, declaring that you have a better handle on an issue which you’ve 

A) Never experienced.

and

B) Possess no contextual knowledge.

A cursory google search for women’s shelters and advocacy groups won’t make you an expert, and do not, in any case, constitute a well-researched opinion.  This is you wedging yourself into a conversation that, yet again, does not concern you beyond your fervent desire to perpetuate negative stereotypes of my people because of your nebulous conception of free speech.

Nice of you to slip that bit about how you believe that women should never be at fault for what they wear.  How magnanimous of you.  However, no one is arguing that the women in these pictures deserve to be abused, we are arguing whether these images perpetuate a sexualized stereotype which reduces Native women to sexual objects undeserving of integrity and violable at all times.

If you honestly believe that sexualized portrayals of Women of Colour are in no way contributing to their disproportionate sexual abuse, you are living in a fucking fantasy world.  

“Sexual assault rates and violence against Native American women did not just drop from the sky. They are a process of history.” - Jacqueline Agtuca

“imperial discourses on sexuality “cast white women as the bearers of more racist imperial order.” By extension, 

Native women as bearers of a counter-imperial order pose a supreme threat to 

There are three colonial tropes that contribute to a list of archetypical representations of Native people within the colonial sphere.  They are innate inferiority, stubborn resistance to progress and depravity. (Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers)

The list of archetypical portrayals frequently decussates itself, but the intersection we’re worried about here is one borne of the trope of inferiority and the trope of depravity.  The Indian Princess as a lascivious carrier of sexual sin (depraved), existing beneath the cares and moral sensibilities of the righteous (inferior).

That, historically and presently, perpetrators have justified their rape and abuse of Native bodies according to these tropes, is well-documented.

These colonial tropes have been used by colonial forces to not only enact wide-scale injustices in imperial pursuit, but also to present them in such a way as to reinforce the otherness of their victims.  The presentation of Native peoples as something other excuses their abuse and deprivation, framed as antagonists in an intractable Us vs. Them conflict.

Now, postsatire, please don’t confuse this free education with an invitation to debate any of this.  I just want you to think about how overtly sexual portrayals of Native-ness have not, as in that Agtuca quote, fallen from the sky.  I want you to think about how these portrayals, aside from their commodification and trivialization of our cultural expressions, contribute to popular perceptions held by the dominant colonial culture, which in turn determine how its members interact with us.  

I want you, postsatire, to put aside your pathetically limited view of things, and simply put these very big, very simple puzzle pieces together. All on your own.

so like, yr saying that like, historical portrayals of indigenous peoples have been used to justify their exclusion, and violence committed against them, and that those historical portrayals are still in play today?

Finally, I want you to ruminate on why anyone should give a shit what you think. It’s obvious that you find great satisfaction from exulting in your supposed intellectual prowess, but you have, yet again, failed to blow anyone’s mind.

(via pixyled)