I always have so much fun shooting with Zombie Foto!! Had a blast!! Here are a few pics to show you the vibe we had in Malibu yesterday!! Woooo hoooooo!! I added some more pics since the last post.
I've been debating what to say since I saw this post. And I'd kind of stalled out on it till I also watched your video on internet stalkers and saw your little "war cry" at the end of it. Then I stalled out again until I saw your new twitter pic.
First I'd like to say that this is most difficult for me because I really respect you. I've followed your adventures for several years now, company to company and then on your own. I got the impression of you as a beautiful woman who presents herself on her own terms and sticks to her own boundaries, and someone who tries their best to live their faith. It's also a bit daunting to bring up because as a Latina, you have your own indigenous heritage that you're a part of.
You're being terribly racist. I don't think you yourself are racist, but your actions are. If I thought you were racist, I wouldn't bother saying anything, because you wouldn't care. You seem like someone who would care.
What you're doing here is called "playing Indian" and it is, to us, on the same level as parading around in blackface. There is a bad history associated with outsiders dressing up like this, from hipsters right now all the way back to the Boston Tea Party. It's not the same as wearing a Halloween costume because it's a caricature that homogenizes more than 500 cultures, created for us by outsiders in an attempt to stereotype us all as dumb savages that it was okay to treat inhumanely-- and for the last hundred years or so, as extinct. It's not okay because for us, genocide isn't the past.
Our older generations still remember being forced to leave their families and go to the boarding schools, where they were humiliated and degraded for having any part in their own culture to the point of losing their own primary languages. My grandfather won't even speak about being Indian outside of his own home. It's not appropriate for you to play Indian in front of him.
Up to 1/4 of the women in my parents' generation were force-sterilized for being Indian. Some were not even informed it was being done. They can't share their own culture with daughters. It's not okay for you to play Indian in front of them.
Now the government is using reservations for nuclear waste disposal. It's still not okay. Please stop.
I still respect you, but I don't respect this. I really hope to see or hear something about this, even if something tells me that's naive of me.
I've been debating what to say since I saw this post. And I'd kind of stalled out on it till I also watched your video on internet stalkers and saw your little "war cry" at the end of it. Then I stalled out again until I saw your new twitter pic.
ReplyDeleteFirst I'd like to say that this is most difficult for me because I really respect you. I've followed your adventures for several years now, company to company and then on your own. I got the impression of you as a beautiful woman who presents herself on her own terms and sticks to her own boundaries, and someone who tries their best to live their faith. It's also a bit daunting to bring up because as a Latina, you have your own indigenous heritage that you're a part of.
You're being terribly racist. I don't think you yourself are racist, but your actions are. If I thought you were racist, I wouldn't bother saying anything, because you wouldn't care. You seem like someone who would care.
What you're doing here is called "playing Indian" and it is, to us, on the same level as parading around in blackface. There is a bad history associated with outsiders dressing up like this, from hipsters right now all the way back to the Boston Tea Party. It's not the same as wearing a Halloween costume because it's a caricature that homogenizes more than 500 cultures, created for us by outsiders in an attempt to stereotype us all as dumb savages that it was okay to treat inhumanely-- and for the last hundred years or so, as extinct. It's not okay because for us, genocide isn't the past.
Our older generations still remember being forced to leave their families and go to the boarding schools, where they were humiliated and degraded for having any part in their own culture to the point of losing their own primary languages. My grandfather won't even speak about being Indian outside of his own home. It's not appropriate for you to play Indian in front of him.
Up to 1/4 of the women in my parents' generation were force-sterilized for being Indian. Some were not even informed it was being done. They can't share their own culture with daughters. It's not okay for you to play Indian in front of them.
Now the government is using reservations for nuclear waste disposal. It's still not okay. Please stop.
I still respect you, but I don't respect this. I really hope to see or hear something about this, even if something tells me that's naive of me.