gamerunknown wrote:
fleur wrote:
Eagle feathers are earned and awarded to people, they're not a fashion item.
As the author of the article points out, war bonnets were restricted to men in the Plains nation. In Victorian England, bicycles were restricted items for women. Women chose to disrespect Victorian culture and use bicycles. The same is true in certain cultures in India today. Trousers were restricted items.
There is in no way a sensible comparison between cultural appropriation and Victorian women riding bicycles. Cultural appropriation is borrowing other people's traditions, without understanding or respecting their history, often perpetuating stereotypes. Usually cultural appropriation involves taking a significant cultural item from people who have been colonized, subjected to forced assimilation and have had their own cultures and traditions suppressed, and then using it because someone thinks it looks cool. War bonnets look really, really cool but never on white people. Let's not forget it was white people who took their lands, their lives, their children, tried to obliterate their languages and cultures. It is only respectful that if native people say please do not do this, then don't do it.
The article I linked to, and will link to again here
http://apihtawikosisan.com/hall-of-shame/an-open-letter-to-non-natives-in-headdresses/
is written by an indigenous woman who is very active in native organizing and education in the city I live in. Eagle feathers are awarded to men and women, they are traditionally worn in different ways. It is up to native women to challenge sexism in their own communities and they very much do. Native women are at the forefront of indigenous organizing. There are women chiefs (and warriors) and if they chose to respect their own traditions by not wearing war bonnets that's their call. Women do, however, wear eagle feathers.
Bicycles, on the other hand, are just a mode of transport and when Victorian women took up cycling they were not appropriating someone else's significant cultural traditions.
Besides, there's a reasonable argument for not wearing any animal products whatsoever.
That is a personal choice someone would make and has no bearing on the argument. It also would be a difficult argument to put where I live, if you wanted to be inclusive of native people, given the high cultural significance of wearing animal products to native people.
What has this got to do with matted hair in London?