textualdeviance | (no subject)

That's exactly what I said in my complaint to CBS. I would have seen five minutes worth of tits (well, that sort of goes without saying) than five minutes of blatant racism.

Grr.

There are a ton of headlines and letters up at http://www.indiancountry.com as well.

I could care less about a boob.

Racism, on the other hand... people have really got to get their priorities in a row.

o_0

i passed this along to my friends who are part of a native american dance group. i think they will probally react the same way i did.

thank you for sharing that (as i dont have television or radio so i probally would have never heard of it)

there seems to be alot of disrespect towards different groups of people lately :(

gosh, i must disagree.

(i mean: i agree about the pointless boob frenzy. but i don't agree with that press release.)

have you seen the movie Undercover Brother? it's a guy who has to study white culture in an attempt to "pass" in white society. awful, terrible send-up of caucasian-americans, appalling in its unfair stereotyping. this was racist.

outkast laughs at himself. i think the extreme over-the-top performance at the grammies was a *parody* of exploitation. i own a Playboy from my birth month (1973) that features a "native american lass in her native skin" -- she's hott, nekkid, and carries a tomahawk. lime green feather headresses is more Village People, less cultural commentary. it's a meta-discussion of our culture's portrayals of indians, not a comment upon them itself. i mean ... lime green. it was all about Vegas, not reservation lands.

Just my wee cent. ;)

Your wee cent and my two cents form a larger monetary value. ("Wonder Twin Powers Combine!") And on to the commentary:

...UPTIGHT! My GOD!

The reality: Satire. Amusement. Jokes.

The imagined offence: If Outkast had been "protraying racial stereotypes," he'd have half a dozen drunken native american men on stage, not the satirical Indian Princesses that he did.

I can't stand living in a country where everyone is offended by everything. It's beyond ludicrous.

I'm at a loss for coherent words. A choreographed musical act doesn't offend me... (this goes for tits *and* indians) society's up-in-arms responses disgust me to the core of my being.

Sue me, but I think there's an appalling lack of sensitivity and respect for other people in our culture, and I think it needs to stop. I'm quite tired of the attitude that everyone should just buck up and take their licks. People are getting more and more numbed out to the suffering of others. We've become a culture of sociopaths because we no longer have the ability to empathize with the suffering of others. Granted that this incident isn't quite the same as, say, someone torturing a small animal for fun, but the same thought process underlie both actions: a fundamental disregard for the feelings of others. It's the golden rule, y'know? I don't believe in government censorship, but I do believe in people taking responsibility for the effects their words and actions have on others. We are not islands. We all have the ability to hurt other people with what we do, and we all have to take responsibility to not do that.

This is the same flawed logic that somehow allows people to form class action law suits to prove that the sight of a human breast somehow scarred them emotionally, and they should be monetarily compensated for it.

There is no one who can "suffer" from Outkast's song and dance number, saving maybe for classical or country music fans. He was not on stage screaming "Filthy Redskin! Kike! Sand Nigger!"... he performed a satirical dance number to one of his own satirical songs.

What injury was done to anyone? The problem is that the US has become a nation of reactionary, professional victims who think that lawsuits are the way to financial freedom. Sue someone famous, become a millionaire.

No-one's suing anyone here. They're not trying to make money off of it. They're trying to call attention to the fact that what he did was insensitive to a racial group that is not his own, and therefore not his to make fun of.

People who belong to minority groups suffer every day from being dehumanized because they get reduced to caricatures and stereotypes of who they are. Things like this contribute to that dehumanization. It treats people as things instead of full human beings.

All this group is asking for is an apology from the artist, and from the network who allowed him to do the routine. All that needs to happen is something to the effect of a statement that says "I'm sorry I was disrespectful of Native American culture." It's not that complex, it's just an acknowledgement that he did something insensitive, which he did. No-one is dehumanized by seeing a boob on tv. But being made fun of because of your ethnic background or any other immutable trait IS dehumanizing.

Its called appropriation!

Self-parody is one thing, but he's parodying a culture he doesn't belong to. If he wanted to do an outrageous sendup of black stereotypes, that's his right, but he doesn't have the right to mock other people.

i really expressed myself poorly in my comment to you !

hm. to further elaborate. playboy's native american playmate from 1973, all decked out in native garb, is _appalling_. it's hideous in so many ways i can't even begin to describe it. racism is exhibited by playboy's absolute lack of recognition that their depiction of a wank-object as an "indian princess" is in any way wrong.

outkast? knows what he's doing. [oh: is it _he_ or is it _they_ ?] those vastly stereotypical indians are a send up of our own culture, not native american culture.

i agree that it isn't nice to mock cultures that are not your own. but i don't think that's what Outkast is doing, so i'm neatly sidestepping that issue. i think Outkast is mocking his *own* culture.

NOT getting into the racial... thing, but I just wanted to jump in here to say that OutKast is really two men- Big Boi, and Andre 3000 (as he's calling himself at the moment. I think). Their album, for which they won record of the year, was a double set that was, essentially, two solo albums. They set records recently when both sides of their latest single hit it big on Billboard- "Hey Ya!" was no.1, and "The Way You Move" was no.2.

Earlier in the Grammy broadcast, Big Boi performed "The Way You Move." Andre 3000 performed "Hey Ya!" to close the show.

o good.

i was hoping someone would answer my question!

Why would you need to belong to a culture in order to mock it?

It's as simple as how black people can call each other "nigga" but white people can't. You can make fun of yourself. It's rude to make fun of other people.

Dave Chappelle makes fun of white people on his show just about every week and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, I usually laugh my ass off.

White people are in a position of power. Mocking people in a position of power by people who are not is reasonable. Mocking people who are not in power isn't.

Then we have met with the basis of our disagreement.

How so? Do you feel all mocking is okay, or all mocking is not okay?

And if you feel all mocking is okay, why? Why is it okay to heap more abuse on a group which is already disenfranchised and oppressed?

I'd have to say that... well, I don't exactly dissagree with you. Your point is valid as far as I am concerned. Having followed Outkast's televised shows for the last few months, I can tell you that this was most likely supposed to follow along the same suit that the other preformances have been.

So far, everyone has dressed up in different sports- strange sports, the most 'normal' of them being football, but the others are things like polo, golf, tennis and other such. Their clothing always has a slight 60's 'laugh-in' tone to them, and it's always in terrible neon shades of green and orange.

I've been a fan of Outkast for quite a while. I've heard a lot of what, in specific, Ben Andre has to say about life and his views, and I do not believe that their native american preformance had anything to do with racism. The dance act that they used, they use every other time- it was nothing different, except this time they wore cheesy laugh-in style 'indian' costumes.

You have the right to be offended. I'm not, because I don't think they intended it to be the way everyone else took it. But I can certainly see where others would be offended.

Personally, I think they should have done the tennis outfits again, because those were cute. Especially the bald girl.

The amazing thing to me is how literally hundreds of people could have seen this Outkast 'performance' in rehearsal and no one thought to say: this is offensive. Or by the laughter from the 'stars' in the audience who were watching-- captured live on TV. ouch!! This just shows how ignorant people are about Native Americans. Had it been any other group, the outcry would be fierce. As it is, we're so accustomed to seeing racism about Native Americans we don't even question it much.

For example, how many people see little kids at Halloween wearing feather and paint and think its ok?
To Native Americans, these are sacred symbols, not costumes or products. Eagle feathers symbolize the sun, a giver of life. The whoop yell that Outkast dancers pantomimed was used to deride older Indian people who grew up in the 1950s. Yes, our grandparents were really cruel sometimes. That is satire? c'mon! Think how it must feel to see that on TV if you're a 70 year old woman who has been spit on for being Indian. Think how it must feel if she were to read some of these comments say 'oh, its no big deal just get over it.'

Racism is sly and subtle and it twines itself through the best of us. I say hooray for the brave souls who are organizing the boycott and standing up to commercial bullies like TV networks and record companies-- Rosa Parks must be smiling somewhere.

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