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 have a Cherokee sim that I'm trying to show off but before I go to fully create him I need a few things first.

I need a wolf tattoo or at least some tattooed skin (he's a light caramel brown in pigment) but his family is very close to the wolf spirits so I thought a wolf tattoo would be sexy. xD I also need some feathers and winter-style clothing. Unless he's inside he wears a lot of layers.

Also, if anyone knows where I can find clothes in this style, that would help a WHOLE bunch!
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/078/e/f/Native_Girl_by_Dragonfly3D.jpg

I've already scoped out all of Modthesims. I don't think I'll find much else there unless there isn't something listed under the Native American/Indian criteria that matches what I'm looking for. ._.; (It happens~)

 

I just don't know how to begin with so much worngness.  I am assuming that the person is young and naive as so many of these people are.  But she (probably she) has both the responsibility and the right to do better than this. 

I want tio start out by saying that I don't want to tell people not to make "ethnic" sims at all: I think that's not the desirable outcome.  People should feel free to make Sims in colors and with historical or contemporary backgrounds of different cultures.  But beyond that, oh my, is there anything in this that is not completely, flabbergastingly, overwhelmingly wrong?

Should I start from the geometrical top, with the idea that there's something wild-animal-like about the Cherokee, who have an exquisitelcy civilized and siophisticated history and culture? -- or start at the ideological bottom. with the more basic wrongness of equating Native people with some kind of sexy animalistic mystical crap?  Or should I take it piece by piece, addressing all the little wrong ideas and using them to come to a more general description of how offensive this kind of exoticism is?

And oh my dog, if you click on that link, prepare yourself against deeply appalled rage.

I don't trust myself to deal with this without discussing it beforehand.  I am not out to create a huge scene: I want this thing to stop, preferably because the kid who's doing it comes to understand what's wrong with it and figures out a more healthy way to deal with her fantasies.

edit: I figured out a preliminary response:

Maybe the reason you're not finding what you're looking for is that what you're looking for doesn't have much to do with Native Americans, either historically or in contemporary culture and life, and even more especially Cherokees.  At Blacky's Zoo you can find some kind of stereotyped Plains Indians outfits of the 1880's, but that's not what you're looking for either.  The Cherokee aren't  a Plains nation anyway.  They are an exiled Southeastern nation: before they were force-marched to Oklahoma, they had an elaborate, modern kingdom of about the size of a small European country, with developed gold mines, railroads, and printing presses (it's pretty explicit that the reason for the destruction of their country was the gold mines).  Once they arrived in Oklahoma, they participated in the same kind of farming and ranching economy as the white and black settlers in the area.  Their clothing has been more or less "regular American" for so long that  "dressing like a Cherokee" has no meaning at all.

Theclothing in the picure you link to looks like nothing more or less than a stripper's costume -- and there's nothing really wrong with a stripper's costume -- so maybe that's a clue to what you should be searching for. As for the wolf tattoo, search for wolf tattoo, not for Native American tattoo: there are a lot of tattoos out there, and I bet you could find one that's like what you're thinking of.

I was going to be really, really offended, by the way, at the assumptions and implicit racism in what you posted, but I peeled away the language you used and at the core of it there's a sweet little silly fantasy, if you free it from racist labeling: sexy man, with beautiful honey colored-skin and silly skimpy clothing with gaudy decorations (I love gaudy myself), with mystical tattoos -- what's not to love?  Except for the wording: you should  be aware that you're describing your fantasy Sim in extremely inaccurate and potentially very offensive ways.


So what do you think?  Educational enough?  Helpful enough?  Firm enough?  Not too mealy-mouthed?  You should know that this particular forum is not the home of very sophisticated people and it purports to be politically neutral but we all know what neutral really means whether anybody means it to or not.  Also, is it counter-productive to use modifiers like "potentially very offensive" when I mean "downright extemely offensive" just in order to keep the person from going baliistically defensive?

By the way, I have been editing this every thirty seconds for the last fifteen minutes.  Sorry for what that's probably doing to your flist, but I want to say what I really mean, especially since I have reason to believe this will be read by people who don't have a history with me or a reason to cut me slack (hell yes I want to make a decent first impression).

Interim final edit: okay, I'm going to go with the response I wrote and hope for the best.

Comments

[trinker.livejournal.com]

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

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

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

[trinker.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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 . . .

[trinker.livejournal.com]

"Reducing living, breathing people into sex toys, when they didn't volunteer for it, and when they don't get treated with respect in their real lives, is hurtful to the people those sex toy caricatures represent."

...?

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Exactly why I am uncomfortable with real people slash!

[trinker.livejournal.com]

me, too.

[zeborah]

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

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

Just post it as is!

just yikes

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.

Problem with getting too angry with people for being this clueless is that when people feel shame, they adopt a defensive position, and will often dig their trenches deeper.

But your post is constructive and compassionate, and instead of saying 'you are offensive' it says, 'this could be construed as offensive' (edit: eek! offensive, not 'defensive'!).

Others might call it 'mealy mouthed' but in a situation like this, I think a gentle touch is far more helpful.

One note: she will probably still respond defensively, perhaps even angrily. And my opinion is that if she does, either don't respond, or respond with a "I gave you the information, it's up to you to decide what to do with it" kind of response. Often people react negatively in the moment, but as long as they aren't forced to really defend their position, will think about it later, continue to think about it, and eventually come around. Planting a seed, is all, and you might not ever see that particular one grow into a tree.

Just my opinion.

[ocotillo-dawn.livejournal.com]

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.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thank you for putting this much work into being kind but accurate in a difficult situation.