A friend of mine has a daughter who goes to East Lansing High School. She mailed me today and wrote:
It's homecoming week, 2007. Students dress up every day with a different theme. Yesterday was CEOs and Secretaries. The theme of Homecoming this year is Cowboys and Indians. The seniors are the Cowboys.What do you think? (I'll weigh in later!)
4 comments:
I think that this directly relates to what we've talked about in class and read about in "The Heart of a Chief." I believe that although they aren't meaning to be prejudiced by the 'cowboys and Indians' theme, that it is still to this day reinforcing stereotypes of "Indians" and being 'savages,' etc. It also connects to the Insider vs. Outsider debate, because although none of the students I'm sur emean harm by dressing up, they may be offending people in their own class, and aren't showing respect for different Native American cultures. I think that is the biggest point, that there is not respect being shown in the jumbly way people tend to dress up for "Indians." In costuming, usually no care is shown for staying with a certain tribes customs, and as we learned about in class, people will probably just take stereotypical aspects of Native Americans and lump them together and call it a costume. So, I think to be progressive, to be respectful and to be part of a community that supposedly soo represents diversity, that particular theme day needs to be changed, and I think it would be important to hold an assembly or such thing explaining why to the studnets, or educating them on what it took many of us until college to learn.
That's my opinion! =)
I think that this is a very good example of ways in which things in the community directly relate to discussions we are having in class. I was very surprised to see that the theme of Cowboys and Indians is a current high school homecoming theme, specifically since in today’s society we are aware at the very least that the term Indian is politically incorrect. I began to really think about this because I know in my high school we had events such as this week, where you dress up in different themes each day, and I thought about all the themes we had at my high school. Although I was not able to come up with any themes that were of this topic, I began to think about the fact that these type of themes are thought of as a fun way to dress up and the cultural implications may not even be considered. I know that at my high school the student council set up the themes for the week, and they had to be approved by the principal in the school. So my first concern with this is that the students themselves did not recognize this theme as potentially offensive to members of the Native American culture. Secondly I would be concerned that members of the staff also did not see this as a problematic theme. Although I am sure the intention is not to offend any culture, it is simply to come up with a creative event for the students, I think that this theme and its potential implications on the Native American culture, is inappropriate.
After reading “Heart of the Chief” and thinking about the different debates about school mascots in our society today I think it is interesting that this theme was allowed as a homecoming event theme. I think that this type of theme only reinforces the typical stereotypes that people have about the Native American culture, and this does not allow for any type of education as to why these ideas may be stereotypical of the culture. There may even be some Native American students in this high school community that may be offended by the topic of this theme but simply may not feel comfortable speaking out about it. I think that this theme should either be changed or at the very least not allowed as a future theme in the school because in such as diverse society, as our society is no a days, we have to be very aware of the things that we choose to allow our schools and ourselves to be part of and the ideas that are portrayed. This theme could potentially portray some very negative views of a school even if it was not the intention of the school community to offend anyone or any culture.
I think that it is very ironic that the theme at East Lansing High School is Cowboys and Indians. Today in my placement of TE 401 the fifth graders were reading a chapter from their text books about Native American "cultural regions" and the question was posed "Are there still Indians in Michigan?" When pairing this with the community event I think it speaks volumes for the lack of knowledge that exists within local schools concerning Native Americans. The only representations that students are getting are those of Native Americans in the PAST and that once the Europeans finished their pushed West, their stopped existing. So with that said I would like to pose then, with everything that we have talked about around "Heart of a Chief" and other information, did Americans in the 1800s succeed in "killing the Indian and saving the man?"
This instantly reminded me of "The Heart of a Chief" and also of a friend of mine. I have a friend who used to go to Central Michigan University but now currently goes to MSU. The reason why he goes to MSU now is because he used to make a point to dress as a Chippewa Indian at every CMU game for football season. The university received MANY complaints about his actions (even from the Chippewa Tribe)and they threatened to kick him out of CMU if he didn't stop dressing as an indian at the football games in the student section. In the end he decided to transfer here to avoid further problems. This instantly reminded me of "The Heart of a Chief" and also this post from Valerie is relatable as well.
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