Cowboys and Indians.....offensive?

[mrgrouper]

Yesterday was the teachers strike, so I took my son to Gulliver's World in Warrington. Gulliver's world has hardly been updated since the 1980s, however I like this because it has a retro feel to it and reminds me of when I went there as a child. Most of the signage is from the eighties.
Anyhow there was a couple there who were clearly unimpressed by its dated appearance. We were in the Wild West part of the park and there is a large sign that says Cowboys and Indians. The woman started pointing and said she could not believe in 2016 they would have such a politically incorrect sign.
I was a bit surprised. Is Cowboys and Indians now racist and offensive? It is the first I have heard of this.

Surely most of us have read and watched and heard about a million times more things than the very specific,narrow band of things taught at school

Well, there is plenty of information out there. Documentaries, newspaper stories, films, books -and a little thing called the internet. Plus museums and general life exposure.

Things like this also make me realise why a lot of people have this mistaken - almost arrogant - impression that Britain used to be "Great", that there is some golden age that we should be trying to go back to, etc. I think they perhaps don't always realise the damage that Britain has done in the world, or the way that Britain is perceived by other countries. And that can lead to the sort of mess that we're in today.

The largest organisation representing Native Americans is called the American Indian National Congress so I think we can take that as a steer as to the accepted terminology.

i got quite interested in this when I was visiting friends in Washington DC and the big news was about the campaign for the Washington Redskins football team to change their name.

Things like this also make me realise why a lot of people have this mistaken - almost arrogant - impression that Britain used to be "Great", that there is some golden age that we should be trying to go back to, etc. I think they perhaps don't always realise the damage that Britain has done in the world, or the way that Britain is perceived by other countries. And that can lead to the sort of mess that we're in today

North America was colonised by the British, French, Dutch and Spanish. Whilst none of these were innocent of appalling treatment of the indigenous people the very worst was meted out in the 19th century by the American government long after the war of independence in 1783

Is Cowboys and Indians now racist and offensive?

No it's not now offensive, it's been obviously extremely offensive since at least the early 90s, if not the late 80s. How could it not be??????

The largest organisation representing Native Americans is called the American Indian National Congress so I think we can take that as a steer as to the accepted terminology

More likely it reflects the terminology prevalent when the organisation was founded in the 40s, likewise the National association for the advancement of colored people reflects language use when it was founded in the early c20th. I suspect you'd have a hard job convincing African Americans that colored was the accepted terminology on the basis of the NAACP.

Yes, I grew up in north America, and we did study some of the history in school (though I realise there are many areas that I still don't know in detail); my point isn't so much who meted out which atrocities specifically, but more that people in Britain are often unaware of what happened as a result of Britain's involvement generally in the rest of the world, and this is one small example of that. I expect the same is true of other countries that also had empires, but I don't know if they have this same sense of 'we were great', because I've never lived there. I do find that in the UK, there is a degree to which people seem to not know how the rest of the world sees them, and seem to buy into this shared assumption that we are more important, respected, great etc. than perhaps is entirely justified. And that can lead to things like blaming the wrong people/groups for the problems that emerge today, and wanting to go back to some fictional golden age, instead of accepting a new place in the world and working co-operatively with everyone else to move forward.

You grew up in North America and you are trying to blame Britain for the American government's treatment of First Nations people in the 19th and 20th century?

Have you heard the expression take the beam out of thine own eye?

This. Just because you weren't spoonfed it in school, doesn't mean you can't find it out yourself. For fuck's sake, thanks to the internet everyone on this thread has at their finger tips a wealth of knowledge and resources freely available to them in an instant in a way that would have been unfathomable even 25 years ago

Your assuming everybody is like you.

A higher majority people actually had a crap school experience, left school, got a job, had a family then spent most of their time working relentlessly to feed kids, pay mortgage ect.. It's not unreasonable to understand that for some people learning about people on the other side of the world wasn't their main priority. Access to the Internet is not freely available still. Yes people on MN have access to Internet but it certainly isn't a true reflection of life.

crochet I agree in part - although it's not arrogant it's just plain uneducated. Most prople are nice. When I talk to my grandmother about Britains involvement in many illigal wars/atrocities in the past 100 years and more - that are still effecting us today she was bewildered. She certainly isn't arrogant.

No. I am making a much more general point that history is important and that when people grow up without knowing some of these topics, it contributes to a misguided sense of how countries such as Britain are seen by others. I'm not specifically talking about one particular episode of history, but a more general comment based on posts by people saying that they had not come across various aspects of history that had been mentioned.

No mention of the Spanish at then in your schooling crochet?

There's a high-school football team on the Navajo Res called The Redskins.

The people who live there refer to themselves as The Navajo Nation. I had the strong impression that well-intentioned tourists, like me, who referred to 'Native Americans', were met with a mental eye-roll.

I have found this thread fascinating - I gave up history in year 9 to focus on science subjects and although I am moderately aware of the history of the colonisation of North America I wasn't taught it at school and I haven't read any of the books or seen the films referred to here (including Disney ones!). I'm trying to think where my little bit of knowledge came from and I suspect it was some children's books that were one chapter each on all sorts of topics from history to wildlife that I enjoyed - no idea if anything similar exists now.
I am hugely ignorant of other elements of British and global history. It wasn't until living in SE Asia that I understood why we were very welcome in some bits of Malaysia but much less so in Sri Lanka for example. However, I would argue that this doesn't make me stupid or poorly educated, in fact I have a PhD - I read a lot and use google to look things up but my personal interest is science, not history. So we have books related to palaeontology, evolution, the nature of time and space, how weather is forecast etc. But not American (or other) history. I spent a bit of time on a long car journey recently calculating (with the help of Google) how far you could drive a car on the equivalent of the fuel contained in the driver, and yes, I can use and explain BODMAS! It just wouldn't occur to me to read and research history unless my interest was triggered by something like this thread, a trip to another country or something I'd seen on the news.
I think it's a little bit sad that a thread that's actually very informative is also being used to sling mud at people who know less that others about a particular topic - especially when they have said that they are interested to learn.

DrWhy that's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Why would I have researched something that hadn't even been on my radar. I think the only Native American I've ever seen was probably the guy from one flew over the cuckoos nest.
I've never seen a western so never had those references.

I am quite disappointed by the educational one upmanship posts here. fwiw I have a double first from Cambridge but due to my Asperger's my knowledge is all focused on specific areas, normally related to science and maths.
Gullivers gets thousands of visitors a year and clearly no visitors have felt offended enough to complain and none of the staff have noticed the sign.

I don't think there has been educational one upmanship. My point throughout is that it's nothing to do with what you were taught at school, but if you do have a further/higher education, then it's reasonable to assume that you will be at least basically well informed about the world around you. And that there are loads of opportunities outside formal education to become informed.

And for what it's worth, I would be shocked at the idea of someone, regardless of aen with a double first from Cambridge who did not have an even basic understanding of the genocide of native Americans. Or who did not at least do a quick Google before posting on here about Cowboys and Indians surely not being racist or offensive.........

Well you clearly do not understand Asperger's because people on the spectrum often have very focused knowledge.

it surprises me that no visitor to Gullivers (I don't know it myself) has ever complained. Maybe they did and as another poster suggested above the staff did an eye roll and thought the complainers were being precious.

But I hope you'll do as you said you would, Mrgrouper, and alert the staff that this is offensive. Ignorance isn't a fault but ignoring people politely saying something is offensive would be.

I don't see this thread as educational oneupmanship as much as genuine surprise from a number of posters that someone wouldn't know that the game of Cowboys and Indians isn't acceptable in 2016.

But almost everyone who didn't know gets it now except for a couple of disappointing reactions about so-called political correctness.

I will raise it with staff next time I am there and I do go a lot.

Certainly not education one upmanship on my part, my formal education on US history didn't extend further back than the cold war. Bertrand said, I have been surprised that so many otherwise intelligent and extensively educated people on this thread about the fate of the native Americans, it isn't a lack of education that staggers me, it is the lack of curiosity about the world around them. I guess they know that white Europeans were not indigenous to the United States - surely the next question you'd ask yourself is 'what happened to the indigenous population?' Followed by 'how did the 'settlers' end up with all the land, money and power'? It isn't about knowing the answer, it is about asking yourself the question in the first place.

Umbingo have you never read or seen the Twilight books/films?

Sorry, fat fingers, Umbongo

Nope!

How crap am I?

I think the only Native American I've ever seen was probably the guy from one flew over the cuckoos nest.

He's an interesting example, actually - for some people his performance was the instigator of the Big Silent Indian stereotype. He was an actor called Will Sampson, and I think he's extraordinary in the role, especially given he says almost nothing - but when there was a controversy about why he hadn't even been nominated for the Oscar for best supporting actor, some director said 'Why would you give an award to an Indian just for playing an Indian?' as if there was no talent involved, just some kind of 'racial instinct'.

I think he got tired of being typecast as Indian stereotypes and went on to found an Indian Film Institute.

Also, haven't people seen references to/footage of the quite famous occasion when Marlon Brando' refused his Oscar for The Godfather as a protest about the treatment of Native Americans by the US film industry and an Apache actress whose name escapes me gave a speech instead in a traditional Apache dress? Google the 'Wounded Knee siege' for background.