Is it offensive or am I being silly?

[CocaColaaa]

Just a quick one but NC for this as I guess its outing.

My childrens school are doing world book day and the “theme” is peter pan, its given some suggestions of characters you can dress up as and one is tigerlilly. I was thinking of chosing that one for DD as I hate all of the tinkerbell dresses but ive heard its offensive to dress up as certain things. Native americans being on of them. Is it offensive or am I being silly? Why oh why do they have to do themes and not just let people pick their favourite book characters 😩

You’re just on a wind-up now, aren’t you CocaColaaa .

Of course her character wasn't written purely to mock and misrepresent Native Americans.

have you read Peter Pan and seen the description of Tiger Lily and how she is presented in the book? Her character is literally just full of racist tropes and stereotypes!

OP, that costume is so incredibly stereotypical of how racists would describe Native Americans that I don't even know what to say. OP if you're fine with your child dressing up as a character that is full of incredibly racist stereotypes then go ahead.

hardly on the wind up. the school has chosen peter pan and then put a list of characters in the newsletter one being tigerlilly. All the mermaid dresses look like ariel.

Okay, I've really tried my best to, within the best of my knowledge, explain why this would be insensitive.

And after all that has been said, the OP posts a link to the kind of costume that the Native Americans were condemning in that buzzfeed video back on page 1.

My patience is exhausted. Sometimes it's not just innocent ignorance. Sometimes cunts will be cunts.

Well thanks for your time, anyway.

People do know that in the book Tiger Lily spoke a sort of pigin Englis and called Peter Pan the great white father, don t you? Or it might have been great white lord-i’ll go and look it up......

British book for British kids. Seems OK to me. As mentioned upthread, JM Barrie was a well respected author who donated millions of pounds to children's healthcare. Nasty racist apparently, so let's vilify his memory. (sarcasm)

Next year, let's do a cultural exchange with North America and do Huckleberry Finn. Seriously though, I really like Mark Twain.

Filbert sorry you’re having to deal with this, your posts have been brilliant. People being so delighted with their own ignorance is very hard to take but they’re really to be pitied - it must be awful to be so stupid, and to knowingly pass it to your children is just unforgivable. Really, thank you for your posts, I’ve learned a lot from them

That's very kind of you, but I'm white British myself so don't deserve any particular sympathy!

People do know that in the book Tiger Lily spoke a sort of pigin Englis and called Peter Pan the great white father, dont you?

British book for British kids. Seems OK to me.

some people will just not care about racism I guess..

As mentioned upthread, JM Barrie was a well respected author who donated millions of pounds to children's healthcare. Nasty racist apparently, so let's vilify his memory. (sarcasm)

How do you not understand that Native Americans may be upset by someone dressing up as a character filled with racist stereotypes of their culture?! If you can't understand that then there's no helping you tbh.

Not one single person is vilifying Barrie @CarolinePooter - as you can well see.

They're simply saying times have moved on, awareness has increased, and perhaps dressing as one of his other characters might be a good move.

Difficult, huh?

I'm glad someone has mentioned the Me Too movement, because my objections to that are much the same as my objections to the theory of cultural appropriation being a form of racism. In both cases, trivial examples, which many people might dispute as being offensive, have been included with far more serious issues. So a hand on the back to guide a woman through a doorway is assault and a child dressing up as Tigerlily is racist. It weakens the case for taking serious issues seriously.

A lot seems to come from university depts where the big issues are an overcrowded field so academics needing to make a name for themselves have to break new ground and develop theories of casual racism and casual sexism, objectification and so on. And we end up with sombreros being banned at Mexican themed events, only black actors allowed to play Othello and dwarves played by child actors. Corn rows on white women are offensive and even courses in yoga are suspect.

The other problem I have concerns the issue of 'othering'. I agree with the concept, but surely taking the stand that it's OK to dress up as a national of a privileged country, but not as a national of a country that has suffered oppression is creating another barrier dividing Us and Them. Tigerlily is the only representative of an oppressed culture in Peter Pan, so, when it comes to dressing up, she's left out, discriminated against.

And, quite frankly, I'm sure that the residents of Window Rock couldn't give a damn about a little girl in the UK dressing up in the UK. But then, perhaps they're behind the times. When I was there, the local radio was full of excitement about the upcoming Miss Navajo Nation beauty competition. What would Mumsnetters make of that?

Wow. After all that has been written here, all the excellent and patient explanations by posters like Filbert7 and PickledLimes, you really still consider it acceptable to dress your child as Tiger Lily, CocaColaa? And your justification is that someone at the school said it would be O.K.? I can only assume that the school authorities are rather ignorant about the issue themselves. I wouldn't take my cue from them if I were you.

to dust off a comparison from earlier in the thread, presumably you feel similarly about children dressing up as Golliwogs, Thymeout?

Filbert thank you for your very thoughtful posts. Everything that you have posted regarding First Nations peoples in Canada is also true for Native Americans in the US.

Again, I urge some of the you to research historical trauma. You also might want to look a little bit further at the boarding schools that so many children were forced into. This is not ancient history.

OP, perhaps you should show senior leadership at your daughter's school this thread. It does appear that they need some education. Surely, they do not wish to perpetuate racism.

It weakens the case for taking serious issues seriously

I disagree. I think there is a spectrum of (in the case of #metoo) of inappropriate behaviour and the more its all called out, the less acceptable it is. I don’t think that twenty woman complaining of inappropriate sexual advances from their male bosses in any way trivialises one woman’s rape, and I find it really hard to understand why people do think that.

I applaud the posters who have continued to try to fight against the tide and patiently explain again and again why dressing as Tigerlily and using headdresses is wrong but I don't think that I have the will to try any longer. It seems that for some posters it's not so much a case of wilful ignorance as it is gleeful racism. People seem to be actively revelling in their use and abuse of offensive and inaccurate stereotypes and think that Native American issues are a joke. I think that I give up.

Thymeout, a thoughtful summing up. Things are getting rather out of hand, I think, and the Universities have a large cash cow in these studies.
I have tried to engage, politely I hope. I am not a racist person, and if a difference of opinion results in me being called a cunt then it is pointless to continue.

It barely scratches the surface, there's so much more to learn and it'll likely fall on deaf ears but here's another short video where young Native Americans discuss Six misconceptions about Native Americans.

I went to university a long time ago and before 'cultural appropriation' was a hot topic.

However, I've been lucky enough to have various First Nations people explain their history and continuing struggles to me. Even for those that haven't had that particular opportunity, there are videos and articles linked in this thread with Native Americans explaining why generic 'indian' costumes and the character of Tigerlily are offensive.

Blame it on Universities if you like and if it fits snugly within your world view, but you are simply choosing to ignore the voices of victims of historical and present-day racism, when they tell you something is offensive or racist.

That video has reminded me that in many of the tribes, hair has special significance. In the boarding schools, they forcibly cut off the braids of many of the little girls.

The other problem I have concerns the issue of 'othering'. I agree with the concept, but surely taking the stand that it's OK to dress up as a national of a privileged country, but not as a national of a country that has suffered oppression is creating another barrier dividing Us and Them. Tigerlily is the only representative of an oppressed culture in Peter Pan, so, when it comes to dressing up, she's left out, discriminated against.

I can't agree with this interpretation at all. Refusing to allow one's child to dress up as Tiger Lily is not an act of discrimination. This character and the other "redskins" (as they are so delightfully referred to in Barrie's text) are not full, rounded characters with individual thoughts and feelings and motivations. They are reduced to a type, a blatantly racist trope. Barrie doesn't even shrink from calling them "noble savages." They are indeed well and truly "othered" in the text itself. Dressing one's child in such a costume is not some sort of generous act of inclusiveness. It is perpetuating a stereotype that has caused untold harm.

Someone posted on this thread that when watching the film version of Peter Pan, her children didn't even perceive Tiger Lily as belonging to an actual ethnic group but saw them as "strange imaginary" figures. That isn't the fault of the children viewing the film, of course, but of the reductive way these characters are represented.

Yup, Tigerlily is a representative of Native Americans in the same way that a Golliwog is a representative of black people. It's a whole world away from a character like Moana, for example.

only black actors allowed to play Othello

there are parts of the play where Othello is discriminated against for the colour of his skin. How would it make any sense for a white person to play Othello??

Othello always used to be played blackface. I saw Donald Sinden in the 1970s. And Olivier made a famous film.

I honestly don’t think anyone would do that now. And bearing in mind that Othello’s blackness is pretty integral to the plot...
“the black ram has tupped my white ewe” would make little sense if Othello was being played by Benedict Cumberbatch!