The Cost of Yandy’s Dehumanizing “Sexy Indian” Costumes
In a truly breathtaking display of white feminism in late September, the company Yandy pulled it’s “Brave Red Maiden” costume from its website after Handmaids Tale stans demanded that the image of the red-cloaked Handmaid from Margret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian fiction and bingeworthy tv show should not appear as a sexy Halloween costume, rather a display of women’s empowerment. After having only been in stock for one day, the outcry was so immense that Yandy — a company notorious for sexing up any old Halloween trope — actually released an official public apology, stated here:
Yandy always has stood, and will continue to stand, at the forefront of encouraging our customers to “Own Your Sexy.” We support our customers being comfortable in their skin, regardless of who they are or what they choose to wear. Our corporate ideology is rooted in female empowerment, and gender empowerment overall.
Over the last few hours, it has become obvious that our “Yandy Brave Red Maiden Costume” is being seen as a symbol of women’s oppression, rather than an expression of women’s empowerment. This is unfortunate, as it was not our intention on any level. Our initial inspiration to create the piece was through witnessing its use in recent months as a powerful protest image.
Given the sincere, heartfelt response, supported by numerous personal stories we’ve received, we are removing the costume from our site.
The release of this public groveling by the objectifying-posing-as-sex-positive Yandy has since sparked an important callout from Native and Indigenous scholars, activists and thinkers on Twitter and beyond. Indigenous women are calling Yandy out about their wide selection of Sexy Indian Costumes (found in the section of the website titled “Characters”), a disgusting display of racist stereotyping and sexualization of our people. Mattaponi writer, activist and cultural critic Kima Nieves discusses Yandy’s and other culturally appropriating profiteers’ behaviors as being “willfully dismissive..how companies make a choice to privilege white feminism over Indigenous women’s humanity.” Like many other Native activists seeking eyes on this issue, Nieves expresses frustration “…when we are handing over tons of resources to clearly show how these costumes are dehumanizing, yet these individuals make a choice not to engage with us.” For decades, Native people have been spending so much of our activism combatting the exploitation of our religious beliefs, our tribal regalia and our visage not just in an attempt at stopping appropriative white culture, but also to provide for ourselves a larger platform by which we can explore the many great issues that affect our communities.
One of the most dire concerns among Indigenous Nations in both the States and in Canada is that of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (#MMIWG). According to a report published by The Department of Justice in 2010, 4 in 5 American Indian and Alaskan Native Women have experienced violence in their lifetime. That’s nearly 85% of all Indigenous women, and these are just statistics based upon those who report. Also widely known among Indigenous communities and stated in this report is that “…Native women are significantly more likely to have experienced violence by an interracial partner…”(pg. 2) which means that sexual violence against Native women is overwhelmingly perpetrated by non-Native men. Statistics aside, within our own Indigenous communities, this issue has prevailed and been discussed since early settler colonialism. When non-Natives heard early tales of white men taming the wild Western landscape they came to own, they forgot to look deeper into how men also worked to “tame” the women of said land whose sacred role is to foster the health of their families and communities. Rape and silencing of Indigenous women on our stolen land is very much woven into the fabric of this Nation’s tapestry but continues to be quietly cut out of the dialogue and replaced with white patriarchy’s humiliating means of “honoring” us: through nasty depictions of our visage through sports mascots, Halloween costumes and Disney-fied narratives of our trauma.
All of this is to say that when a college student rolls her eyes at the Native people calling her out on her “sexy Indian” Halloween costume, it is a measure of silencing our claim that #MeToo cannot live solely within the walls of whiteness. In order to truly challenge our country’s current rape culture, we must look into our Nation’s historical practice of rape and sexual violence against Indigenous women and enslavement of Black women. When a person finds a sexy depiction of a fictional Handmaid’s costume more exploitative than an entire culture’s silencing, it makes a mockery of Indigenous women’s crucial work around healing and sustaining the livelihoods of our families — our children.
Imagine as an Indigenous Feminist to cry into the giant void of government, social media and mainstream media throughout our lifetimes about accurate reporting and creating laws that protect the most vulnerable first — which we know are poor women of color — only to be met with more incorrect narratives about historical figures such as Sacagawea and Pocahontas, both Indigenous women who were purchased and kidnapped respectively in their teens by adult male explorers. The continuous outcry is nothing short of exhausting and such exhaustion is compounded when companies who responded immediately to the backlash of white women, fall silent when the Native community gets loud.
On the change.org petition started by Native artist Zoe Dejecacion to Stop Yandy From Using Our Culture as a Costume, Yandy’s chief financial officer Jeff Watton is found telling Cosmopolitan magazine that Yandy will not stop selling these costumes until it “gets to the point where there is, I guess, significant demonstrations or it gets to a point of contentiousness that maybe is along the lines of the Black Lives Matter movement, where you have major figures in the sports world going to a war of words with the president, then it’s become too hot of an issue.” To pit our community’s objections against another movement’s protests is absolutely classic white supremacy and makes my eyes roll so hard that Cher from Clueless seems saintly. Making matters more shameful, when Diné activist Amanda Blackhorse and others hand delivered Dejacacion’s petition to Yandy headquarters, CEO Jeff Watton refused to discuss the petitions with them and told them if they didn’t leave the premises, he would call the police! Is your blood boiling yet?
The outrage felt by Native people that time after time our issues are not represented or addressed in mainstream settings is quite palpable in online discussions. It is a continuation of the historical silencing that Indigenous people have experienced and comes at an extreme cost: that of the lives and livelihoods of our Indigenous women and youth, who are watching popular culture brush their concerns aside time after time. The message being sent to our communities is painfully clear: you are not important. You do not exist.
When I asked Dakota Native thinker and writer Dani Miller what our next steps might be after Yandy and other costume sales sites continue to refuse to pull the costumes she said, “We are living in rape culture. The only way to eradicate sexual violence is through rejecting violence in all forms, which includes rejecting the settler gaze. We should create or support already existing resources for Indigenous women, 2 Spirit, Trans and Non-binary people to reclaim their bodily autonomy. And most importantly,” Dani says, “be more mindful of the ideals our youth are internalizing” so as to avoid the “colonizer-imposed imagery or ideals that we experience everyday.” Every. Day. Companies profit from the stereotyping of Indigenous people and we have had enough. If you so much as considered scolding Yandy about it’s Sexy Handmaid costume, please take your activism one step further and help the world see Native people as more than just characters in your fabulously sexy lives. We are a people and we fight every day to be seen.
