A "Cowboys and Indians" party is just as bad as a blackface party.

Sociological Images, one of my favorite blogs and a large inspiration for this here bloggy blog, keeps a running post of "race themed" parties on college campuses. Recently, they re-posted it because there was a big bruhaha in Canada over some boys and girls completely painting themselves black to "honor" a Jamaican sprinter, which you can see in the picture above.

 Visceral reaction, right? We all instantly cringe, and shake our heads, wondering, "what the eff were they thinking?!" Blackface, in our society, is an ultimate taboo. We know it's wrong, though most folks probably can't verbalize why other than to shout "THAT'S RACIST!"--More on that in a minute.

In addition to several examples of blackface at campus parties, SocImages also has some examples of students dressing up as stereotypical "Mexicans," that I'm sure we all can agree are equally offensive:

As I scrolled down the list, however, I couldn't help but think, "Wait, where are the Cowboy and Indians parties?"

Let's look at some examples, all pulled from the first page of a google images search for "Cowboys and Indians Party." These were not hard to find. Most were posted with pride--"look at my sweet-a** costume, bro!" They can't be found on the websites of CNN or even the local newspaper. There were no bloggers calling for public apologies. In our society, this practice, completely akin to the images above, is accepted, condoned, and normal:

From the poster: "My friend Adam had a Cowboys & Indians themed party on Saturday night. Buddy and I picked up some stuff from Party City and a fabric store and made some pretty sweet Indian gear. The party was a lot of fun and there are more pics up on facebook if you’re interested."

(source)

Caption: "7:40 p.m. There were cowboys and Indians everywhere…"

 (source)

 

 This girl even made a nice collage for us! (/sarcasm)

"The Lambda Chi's had a cowboy & indian party last night. I had so much fun."

 (source)

And then my personal favorite...

Which, irony of all ironies, comes from a photo gallery of folks in the peace corps, in Zambia.

So, why is it, that we as a society have deemed it "totes ok" to dress up in redface, but not blackface, or brownface? The explanation is long, and the practice of playing Indian goes all the way back to the Boston Tea Party, where the colonists dressed up as Indians without the benefit of PBR or ironic mustaches. 

According to Philip Deloria, who literally wrote the book on Playing Indian, the colonists used the racial drag as a way to assert their individuality and differentiate themselves from the British, creating a new "American" identity in the process:

"There is this simultaneous embracing of Indians, which allows Americansto  make claims of American identity. But at the same time, in orderto make a  real physical nation, they have to dispossess those Indians"

This led to policies of Indian removal in the 1830's, and the attempts to physically erase and assimilate Indigenous peoples. For "Americans" to lay claim to "their" nation, they had to get rid of the original inhabitants of "their land'. Throughout US history, donning redface has shifted and symbolized any number of movements, from rebellion to peace activism. But "real" Indians are always left out of the narrative. Americans are far too obsessed with their commodified and imagined images of "the Indian" to be concerned with true authenticity.

So how does this compare with blackface? In the words of scholar Kimberly Tallbear, "Black and White became a race binary, while White appropriated Red."

Scholars and historians argue that blackface was about creating a white identity that existed in contrast to Black slaves, and asserting power over Black Americans by relegating blackness to defined, extremely stereotypical character tropes. This was done through minstral shows, where whites painted their faces with black paint to perform.

Blackface was about creating an identity in opposition (a binary of Black vs White), while playing Indian was about absorbing "Indianness" into a national identity and narrative.

However, playing Indian still relegates Native peoples to stereotypical character tropes. The images above show one "image" of an Indian--the feathers, the fringe, the warpaint, the braids. Indians are sexy maidens, fierce warriors, peace-loving environmentalists, all holding up their hand to say "How." These characters were solidified through early cinema, where Westerns all seemed to include the helpless Indian maiden and the evil Indian warrior--all played by non-Native actors, of course--and continue through to today (see: oh, every post on this blog).

So, it's clear there are large similarities between blackface and playing Indian--both are intentional acts that draw upon stereotypes and a racist history to enact whiteness--but our Nation has created a narrative in which blackface=racist, while redface=normal.

Does that make it ok to play Indian or host a cowboys and Indians theme party? Absolutely not. It just goes to show how deeply the erasure of Native peoples runs. Just because our national narrative and history has somehow normalized the phenomenon does not excuse its roots in the process of systematic erasure of the First Peoples from our homelands.

Bottom line: Blackface=dressing up in a stereotypical costume of a race that is not your own, drawing upon a history of racism and inequality. Playing Indian=dressing up in a stereotypical costume of a race that is not your own, drawing upon a history of racism and inequality. Clear enough for you?

Sociological Images: Race-Themed Events at Colleges 
Native News Online: Philip Deloria on Playing Indian
Wikipedia: Blackface
Theodore Allen: On Roediger's "Wages of Whiteness" 

Earlier:
But Why Can't I Wear a Hipster Headdress?
Harvard's Conquistabros and Navajo's theme party
Playing Indian at Stanford Powwow
When Non-Native Participation in Powwows Goes Terribly Wrong


Editorial Note: I know I've extremely over-simplified a lot of this, and I don't purport to be an expert in the history of blackface or playing Indian, so please, feel free to disagree or point to other resources in the comments!

Playing Indian at Stanford Powwow, Year 2

Last year about this time, I posted about some local high school girls who decided to dress up and play Indian at Stanford's powwow. The post caused a huge ruckus, I ended up getting "legal threats" from the girls' parents, and a lot of people hated me for a minute. But since the internet has a memory of about 2 weeks, if that, it blew over and everyone forgot. But being the person that I am, I'm stirring the pot again, and have a couple of offenders from this year's powwow.

First we've got the guy above, all decked out in his floor length chicken feather headdress, warpaint, and a serape (equally opportunity appropriator--pulling in the south of the border Indigenous peoples). Spotted Friday night by a couple of the undergrads, and gladly posed for a picture with them.

Then this girl, taken on my cell phone, so much of the effect is lost. But she had multi-colored feathers in her hair and warpaint on her face, and right before I snapped the picture, was war whooping (hand over mouth, other hand in the air) to her friend across the way (who was also wearing feathers and paint). There were a couple more I spotted, especially out in the dance circle during inter-tribals (where everyone, including spectators, is invited to dance), including a guy wearing a poncho/serape with a cowboy hat, and beating a hand-drum, and another guy with an entire coyote or puma or something (very dead) draped over his back.

In the grand scheme of powwows, Stanford powwow tends to have a lower ratio of wannabes "liberally interpreting" Indianess (i.e. creating an image of what they think an Indian is based off things they read on the internet and supplies they can find at a craft shop) than some powwow's I've been to, but it still makes me angry.

I still don't know why people think it's ok to don feathers and warpaint and come to a Native community cultural event. I still maintain that it would be exactly the same as donning blackface and wandering into a Black community event. These people are dressing up as a race other than their own, based off of egregious and racist stereotypes from hollywood and other forms of pop culture. All they have to do is look out in the powwow dance circle to see that they look nothing like "real" Indians. But the American narrative of "playing Indian" is so ingrained, people don't seem to see it as taboo, the way blackface remains today.

The other big trend that everyone was sporting were these (really unattractive) feather hair-clips, which unfortunately I didn't get a picture of, but they were kinda like this:

(if you really like it, you can buy it here for $9.50. Or you could go for a walk in the woods for the feathers and pick up some string and plastic beads and make it for less than a buck...if you like the look of dirty woodland feathers and cheap twine in your hair.)

The vendor booth of people who were selling them was overflowing the whole weekend. They came in a bunch of colors, and had more feathers and were (if you can believe it) more unattractive.

The feather clips don't inherently bother me, much like these feather hair extensions that are all the rage right now don't bother me as-is, but it's the whole aesthetic that the powwow goers were buying into that bothers me. I can bet you anything that those people would not have been nearly as interested in the feather clips if they were at the Stanford Mall instead of the Stanford Powwow. They see it as a "safe" way of playing Indian--though most of them would say "oh, it was just pretty!"--I think it really runs a lot deeper than that.

So, clearly, the idea of dressing up as an Indian at a powwow is still alive and well. Excuse me, I think I'm going to go put on my blonde wig and pearls and go crash a WASP-y cocktail party. What? It doesn't work that way? ::shakes fist:: Damn you, white privilege!!!

and for a more detailed look at why wearing a headdress is wrong: But why can't I wear a hipster headdress? 

Earlier: When non-Native Participation in Powwows Goes Terribly Wrong