I need help in modulating a response: words fail me

[ritaxis]

Warning: really offensive "racial" ideas in a Sims context.  Especially in the linked bit, but the quote is bad enough.

In a Sims forum I read and post to, I saw this request:

(how do you get those lines on the side of a block quote that show it is in fact a block quote and not your own words?  I would hate to have anybody think I wrote this stuff)

I

Comments

[trinker]

Would you like me to pass this on to the various NDN people I have on my f-list?

[ritaxis]

If you can express to them the tightrope I want to walk, yess, please.

[trinker]

I've thought about this some more, and seeing the approach you're taking...I think it would be unfair to my friends to ask them to swallow down enough outrage to give a politic response.

OTOH...the feathers? I think she needs to lose those feathers.

http://mycultureisnotatrend.tumblr.com/post/1219050955/i-recieved-a-flood-of-angry-notes-and-messages-after

(I personally find her stripper costume troubling - there's nothing wrong with provocative clothing qua provocative clothing, but in the context of exoticising and Othering, I think there's a whole lot of wrong.)

[ritaxis]

here's nothing wrong with provocative clothing qua provocative clothing, but in the context of exoticising and Othering, I think there's a whole lot of wrong

Yes, that's the thing I'm trying to express. How do I tell a person who knows nothing what this means?

A person I suspect of being a teenager possibly from a place where the whole continent of America is a faraway, exotic thing . . .

[zeborahnz]

Perhaps link them to http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/ ?

[ritaxis]

I'm not sure if that should be a first step for her, but I'm really glad you linked ne there -- I think maybe that person might be a good resource in helping me figure out where to go with this.

[nihilistic_kid]

Just post it as is!

just yikes

[dragonet2]

My mom's family were Cherokee or something who managed to 'pass' into the world of the white. They would deny being American Indian, they would ignore questions about it, etc.

I was adopted. when father was dying mom wanted me to go through paperwork and find various papers (his service discharge papers, etc.) because until he totally went down, they'd both been in total denial.

HER birth certificate lists her as Indian. She was born in a hospital in Muskogee, Okla. MY birth certificate says she's White, and I'm sure the question didn't get asked when I was adopted because she pretty much looked like she could be sort of Italian.

the whole idea is so raddled with miscellaneous troubles that I'm sure a person under 30 these days would not even think to ask the question.

Re: just yikes

[ritaxis]

See, I have the luxury of not being personally connected to this particular one (well, not very connected anyway). So I have the luxury of developing a carefully modulated response and doing the professorial thing. I hope I can use this to good effect.

[ocotillo_dawn]

I think you hit the right tone. Before you posted your ideas, I was actually thinking I'd stay out of it, but very concerned for what I see a lot, which is jumping down the throats of dumb kids -- when they really do mean well at heart

[ocotillo_dawn]

Just a thought -- teenage girls (and maybe boys, but I'm thinking about girls since I was one) often do this sort of thing: fetishizing the other. Princesses, gypsies, indians, gay men, turning them into beautiful caricatures. In an adult, that is offensive. But in a young girl/teenager, I find it less so. I see it as part of the process of them learning about the world and the people in it. I did it. Swoooooned over ideals of what "Indian people" were like (I usually chose SW indians, pueblo especially). This did NOT translate into an adult who thought this way, in fact, I'd venture that it was a first step in me learning to admire what was not me.

So don't get angry or overly frustrated. You might not like the step she is on, but the staircase may be going to a very good place.