“How a fight over Native American symbolism in Oregon brought to light the conflict at America’s core.”
“in the past few years, the geographically incorrect, faux-Native totem pole has become a lightning rod of controversy, with charges of cultural appropriation and concern that said pole might disturb prehistoric archeological ruins of actual Native Americans. The pole’s advocates, who are mostly white, did not simply acquiesce to the rising chorus of Native voices; instead, they attacked a relatively new diversity task force, belittled local tribespeople, and attempted to undermine the fair’s archaeology crew in order to raise the totem pole. How a group of hippies in a community purportedly tied together by peace, love, and understanding ended up sounding like a bunch of neocons speaks to the troubled dynamic between America’s aging — and largely white — hippie subculture and the Native American communities they’ve long imitated…
One of the fair’s many booths is called the Ritz Sauna and Showers, a 12,000-square foot series of ramshackle wooden structures offering cold showers and relaxing saunas for attendees at what is typically a hot, dry, and dusty festival… As he was reconceiving the Ritz, Braddock, along with an artist named Brad Bolton, tried to imagine if “by some magic of nature” flamingos lived in the Pacific Northwest how the Native Americans would have iconized them. And so the Native-ization of the saunas began…
Buffy Sainte-Marie, a Cree folksinger from Canada, visited San Francisco to perform during the infamous Summer of Love in 1967. At a dinner party one night, she was asked by a journalist from the Berkeley Barb about white hippies’ obsession with and emulation of Native Americans. “It doesn’t make any sense to me, these kids trying to be Indians,” she said. “They’ll never be Indians. The white people never seem to realize that they cannot suck the soul out of a race. The ones with the sweetest intentions are the worst soul suckers.”…
For hippies passing through the Pacific Northwest, sites of Native resistance and occupation were novel places to hang out and experiment with drugs. Some genuinely hoped to be helpful to Native activists; they (often ineffectively) guarded fishing nets from confiscation, collected firewood, shuttled Natives to meetings in their “hippie vans,” and kept the cause in the public eye. Asked by a Seattle Times reporter how he felt about hippies joining the Puyallup Indians for fish-ins, one tribal leader responded, “Well, you don’t see any of the good church people down here helping us, do you?”…
The Ritz Clan and those in favor of the pole responded to the criticism on and offline with a litany of excuses. Some suggested the problem was bigger than the pole (and therefore shouldn’t involve the pole), others argued that it was just art (“a single art project is not the appropriate venue to address this larger issue of land use”) and still others suggested that art and free expression are among the most important manifestations of the human spirit, and therefore so sacred that they cannot be touched by issues like cultural appropriation.”
Ugh. UGH
Related: “Native Intelligence” ← INCREDIBLE essay; “Slip On These “Whiteness Goggles” and the Violence of Cultural Appropriation Disappears”; “It’s Culture Not Costume, Moron”; “Stunning Images Show How Native American Fashion Looks Without Cultural Appropriation”
