On July 22, Lakota Chief David Bald Eagle died at the age of 97. He fought in World War II, only spoke Lakota until he was 12 (when he was sent to school and had to learn), was a champion Lakota and ballroom dancer, an actor, a rodeo cowboy, a stunt double, a touring musician, race car driver — you name it, he did it.
This past week in my hometown of Spearfish, there was a Lakota Hoop Dancing Camp free for children in the community. The camp was taught by Starr Chief Eagle, and they performed for the public this morning. Her demonstration can be seen here. I’m still waiting for the adult class with this one.
Culture is a strange thing. That term encompasses the food you eat, the way you worship, the music you sing, your traditions, your ideas about your elders and about women.
White American culture is an even stranger thing in that it’s omnipresent and nonexistent. On the one hand, our culture is everywhere: cheeseburgers, Christmas, Monday Night Football, barbecues, Halloween. On the other hand, our culture is everywhere. It’s commercialized. Christmas isn’t just lighting a candle for Jesus and cooking cheese soup; it’s a nationwide marketing campaign that ends in basically shutting down the country for a day.
And I’m not here to rag on Christmas, but the point stands. Our sense of culture has been blown up, expanded, made larger than life. But when it comes down to it, many people think “culture” and they think about grounding themselves, being tethered to something, traditions.
With our sense of culture so broken, it’s not surprising that we continuously and inadvertently keep maiming other people’s.
Cultural appropriation is the act of taking (i.e. stealing) someone else's culture for personal use. It's a problem we have across the board in America, but one that particularly bothers me when it happens to Native American culture.
Native Americans are 38 percent more likely to be incarcerated, have been killed en masse, de-legitimized, but then... it's suddenly OK for us to dress up like them for Halloween? Or to decorate our houses in a "tribal" style? Or claim spirit animals like we know what it really means?
Here it is: we do not get to murder a culture, stomp it into the ground, and then make certain parts trendy and fun. If it wasn't to be respected or appreciated when the original practices did it, we have no rights touching it.
Admittedly, the lines between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation are blurry. The difference is subtle, and largely internal, so that from the outside it can look identical at times. Other times, of course, it's fairly obvious (white kid with dreadlocks).
That minuscule difference lies within your intentions. Do you think something just looks cool, or are you interested in that culture and its people? Are you buying that "Indian-style" art from some white person or are you supporting the artistic endeavors of a Native American?
We all have to keep ourselves in check here. Work on being respectful, please. Nobody but you can police your intentions, try as they might. Nine and a half times out of ten, I'm not going to call anyone out unless I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they have no blood ties to a certain race or culture.
I truly am excited to be seeing recognition of Native Americans and their culture, even workshops to teach kids about things like Hoop Dancing. I hope these things continue to happen, especially out here in the Black Hills, a place that could desperately use that knowledge and benefit from remembering who this land belonged to.
