During a recent visit to New York City to, amongst other things, check out this Manhattan JC Penney location everyone is talking about (more on that next week!), I did a little Halloween costume shopping at the New York Costumes superstore on 11th street and Broadway. And keeping with the recent theme of Halloween costumes for racists and bigots (and their dogs), I found the perfect costume: Chief Culturally Insensitive.
But look, it's all fine because he's just helping shoppers identify the section with the store's robust offering of Halloween costumes for people who want to dress as Sexy Indian Girl or Super Mohawk, or who want their children to learn more about American Indian culture.
As a non-New Yorker who often finds his place of residence on the business end of East Coast liberal scorn, it's almost satisfying to know that Manhattanites are also clueless. Almost.
Why does this bygone-era Native American have the paunch of a contemporary American Nativist?
I find the statue offensive to surfers.
And mascots!
To say nothing of the French flag war-paint.
How.
What a hatchet job on NY, Abe!
Scrambled.
I was at a party Saturday and an Indian (Dot, not feather. Can I say that? Probably not, but he does.) guy came as an American Indian. I thought it was pretty clever.
As a casino (not convenience store) Indian, I find that hilarious.
You always get to go to the good parties dammit.
I came across an indian sitting up against a tree with an arrow through his forehead...and I thought, is this any way to treat a buddha
The costumes at the links.... whoa.
I love the tiny hatchet that "woman" is holding.
"Oh look, an Indian, but you have a nano-tomahawk so you can't scalp us whiteys! Hahahaha!"
Will you have pictures of the (allegedly) fat JC Penney mannequins? I have been dying to know what they look like.
Yes.
But will there also be, for example, a coke can side-by-side to properly illustrate scale?
Unnecessary.
My stereotypical/racially insensitive American Indian costume this year will be a modern one: I'll be drunk and selling tax free cigarettes.
In singles? Will travel. Jesus, you can't buy single cigarettes anywhere nowadays.
ALSO: One more messed up thing about this is that the statue is draped with the tooth necklaces that the store sells as "voodoo tooth necklace."
http://www.newyorkcostumes.com/istar.asp?a=6&id=30081!T102
In fact, the NYC superstore's ONLY products that correspond to "Africa," "African," "Voodoo" or similar are these necklaces. They CLEARLY are aware of the PR problem of selling some similar, savage "Zulu" costume. And when the time comes for a place to display the "voodoo teeth?" Fuck it, just throw them on this guy.
Also, I wasn't aware until now but they seem proud enough of this thing to display it on their site
http://www.newyorkcostumes.com/images/newyorkstore/P1000207.jpg
Do they have a sexy Rabbi costume?
They have the rabbi burgler higher up on the wall! You can go around stealing peoples golds!
It's taller than I thought.
I mostly concerned about that Native American Child Hitler hanging out just above his right shoulder. Can someone give that kid a graham cracker or put him in a time out or something?
nah man its cool - he's saying "How", not "Heil". I was confused too.
New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones
What's with Chief Culturally Insensitive's cheek stripes? Is he secretly a cheerleader for the Patriots or just showing his love for Serbia and Montenegro?
I'll make my by now quite boring comment that costumes that exploit racial stereotypes are not racist. Racism is when one individual expects (or demands) that another individual from a particular culture exhibit all the stereotypical features. Racism is when a person is not treated equally by virtue of his race. A costume is not racist unless it is used to deprive someone of her rights to be treated equally. Racial stereotypes wouldn't exist if they weren't true in general. Racism exists when individuals suffer because of the stereotype, not when the stereotype is exploited for entertainment.
Despite its declaratory terminology, your statement is not correct about the definition of "racism." And yet, it is. (correct that is.)
ESPECIALLY in this particular case, your statement that "Racial stereotypes wouldn’t exist if they weren’t true in general" is so far off the mark as to be inexcusable, even for a twenty-year-old-white-male-who-just-discovered-Ayn-Rand type character.
Then: "Racism exists when individuals suffer because of the stereotype." Talk with a few American Indians, especially those who grew up on tribal lands and left, about their experiences and then tell me if they haven't somehow suffered because of stereotypes.
So, see, you're wrong about this and right about it all at the same time. Not boring, just, well, not right.
Fetishizing an oppressed race is racist - it has the negative effect of treating them as "other" or imaginary. Check your privilege, Bucko.
Kaw-Liga was a wooden Indian, standing by the door; he fell in love with an Indian maid over in the antique store -- just stood there and never let it show so she could never answer yes or no. He always wore his Sunday feathers and held a tommyhawk; the maiden wore her beads and braids and hoped some day he'd talk. (Kaw-Liga: stubborn to never show a sign because his heart was made of knotty pine.) Poor old Kaw-Liga, he never got a kiss, poor old Kaw-Liga, he don't know what he missed. Is it any wonder that his face is red? Kaw-Liga, that poor old wooden head.
Kaw-Liga was a lonely Indian, never went no where;
His heart was set on the Indian maid with the the coal black hair. Kaw-Liga stood there and never let it show so she could never answer yes or no, and then one day a wealthy customer bought the Indian maid and took her oh so very far away, but old Kawliga stayed. Kaw-Liga stands there just as lonely as can be and wishes he was still an old pine tree.
UNFAIR TO PINE TREES!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9V-9dSPb_A
Kitten: So good I have to close my eyes and peek -- and did you see where they sourced those pix?
Tullet, I don't know where they are from but I image goggled native American art and came up with a lot of similar pix.
Kitten: Oh darn now I lost the link. Sorry to be a tease. It is a vast gallery of really breathtaking schlock.
You know, I was going to post a long-winded reply about the racial insensitivity of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffith (so hurtful to fat lower middle class white guys!), of The Sopranos and The Godfather (my stereotype-wounded Dago breathren!) The Departed (my poor mis-understood Mick Bastard cousins). But it all boils down to this: It's just a costume in a crappy costume shop. If this is the most offensive or racist thing you can find in New York City, you're not looking at all.
Um, yeah. Not the same thing. And does it say it's the "most" anything in New York? Dismissal based on an example not being the most extreme of its class (or because there are equal examples in another class) isn't really a line of reasoning.
Oh man my second generation Mexican secretary is sewing my wiener dog's mariachi suit right now. Is that rascist? How about its little gun & trumpet? The whole thing is so cute and we avoided the whole Nazi-Latino thing. Come on Abe. Cut us some slack.
Abe seems like a nice enough guy to never cut a wiener dog. But he did cut through a lotta bullshit. Nice!
If you want to demonstrate that New York is racist and goes around singing Strange Fruit at the rest of the country, you go Abe, I've got your back, and we will tread out the vintage where the hypocrite testicle is stored. But there are more substantial proofs than the seegar-store Injun. Like, Nassau County is this country's most ethnically segregated suburban county, according to the Census Bureau and the New York Godalmighty Times. Like, in my Westchester burbtown, recently fled, there were two public-school affiliated summer day-camp programs, one for white kids, one for black and brown kids. (I signed my kids up for the "wrong" one, unable to interpret the coded hints in the official prospectus, and other paleface parents tried to clue me in, cough-cough, at the lilywhite Little League.) Like, in the formerly-Irish-now-Dominican hood that is my hood now, there are bomb shelter-like Irish bars with Irish colors painted large by the entrance in a way that plainly says: No Dominicans served. Seegar-store Injuns? Less hurtful I think.
It looks like the role of Chief Culturally Insensitive is being played by the late Montgomery Clift. Which is odd, since I thought he was spending his time these days haunting a hotel in L.A.
Abe's relentless attack on Halloween is a thinly veiled racist rant(s) against the Irish who brought the holiday to the United States.
How are caricatures of people of European descent "not the same thing" as this Indian costume? What if this were a hasidic jewish costume? Would that be "not the same thing" as the Indian costume? How about a sikh or an arab getup? Where is the line? Which ethnicities is it okay to ridicule and which are sacrosanct?
Well, I was primarily referring to your Homer Simpson example. And it's still somewhat different because this is the ONLY representation of american indians our society ever puts forward. Plus it's a minority group that is still largely disenfranchised. Again, all of your examples, in theory, could certainly be offensive. That doesn't somehow make the offensiveness of this one invalid. Are you going to say Obama as an African witch doctor
http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/barack-obama-and-racism-an-annotated-gallery/2
is just some good old fashioned fun with cultures or that because it's not as bad as it could be or as bad as some other stereotyping, it's not worth mentioning?
It is interesting that you are so quick to see racism in the most benign Halloween costume, yet your avatar pic viciously mocks the stutterers of the world.