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 😩

Forgiving and forgetting is often a healthy way to move forward

Actually, I think this one of the worst ways to ‘move forward’. It exempts people from feeling blame and guilt, it allows history to be forgotten (and therefore doomed to be repeated). No one is owed forgiveness to ease a conscience, and even if the wronged person/people find ways of healing and moving forward themselves that does not mean the ones who have committed the wrongdoing are ‘forgiven’. Should we follow this train of thought for slavery and the Holocaust?

‘Forgive and forget’ is such an empty phrase, mostly used by people who have never come to true harm in their life, I have found.

I have to say that forgiving and forgetting the damage done to countless nuns and priests would be a dreadful thing to do. They are working hard at getting us to- and we musn’t, because if we do it will just carry on. Some people find comfort and peace in forgiving individuals who have hurt them and that’s fine. But forgiving the system that allowed it and forgetting it happened is so dangerous.

Thank you. Hoodathunkit. I apologise that I'm not as eloquent and as informed as I'd like to be, but I am trying to learn and improve. I do think that you make a good point with the coercive control. I think that many people know exactly what they're doing and either don't care or are actively being racist and taking pleasure in it.

There used to be a poster on MN who was notorious for her racist views. I was much younger then and naively thought that she wished to learn and was just ignorant, she was good at playing the innocent, eventually I had to accept that she had no wish to change and knew exactly what she was doing.

*by countless nuns and priests.

Well of course you can't dictate to someone they absolutely must move on, but be there to support them if they really want to. Conversely, if they do want to forgive and forget, don't stop them. Keeping a grievance alive is a burden, too.

Out of interest

Have you or members of your immediate family experienced genocide?

Have you ever been told that your people are not human and more akin to animals?

Were you as a child removed from your family and sent to a boarding school where you were taught that you culture was primitive, your spiritual practices were deluded and godless?

Were you ever stolen from your family and placed in a boarding school where you were forbidden from speaking your native tongue and abused emotionally, violently and sexually?

I am asking this as many native American and First Nations people alive today have experienced exactly this.

One survivor speaks out

Should this man forgive the people who abused him? Should he just "forgive and forget"?

Interesting piece in The Times today by Giles Coren, the title’s “Caricaturing Me as a Racist”. Apparently a tenant in his holiday let complained about the “anti Semitic art”. It turned out that it was a drawing of Giles as a baby with his father, a gift from Arnold Roth. So a drawing of a Jewish father and son by a Jewish artist was judged anti Semitic by non Jews. Needless to say, Coren was pissed off.

Transferable or applied learning doesn't seem to be a skill for some on here - am wryly amused by the inference that the Canadian video director should have paused the filming and said "thats great, now if we could just do the take for English primary school market, then after that we'll canter through the rest of potential European countries and in a couple of hours you can have a break before we resume on Australia...."

The people who caused all the suffering are long dead. The effects live on, for sure. Should it rule people's lives?

I’ll just ask once more of the poster who referred to others as “clinging onto racism”: do you mean me?

I'm speaking generally but if you appear to be clinging to racism then yes, I mean you too and your response to the video suggests that.

I'm quite surprised this thread is still going. To summarise:

• Tiger Lily is a racist character of a minority group that has been historically and brutally killed off/oppressed/discriminated against.
• Native Americans have directly said they find people dressing up in Native American costumes offensive (specifically mentioning Tiger Lily in fact)
• People are still arguing that they should be able to do it? ...Because their need to dress as this one specific character matters more than a whole group of peoples' feelings?

The people who caused all the suffering are long dead. The effects live on, for sure. Should it rule people's lives?

How do you suggest that people stop letting it "rule their lives" when people keep on rubbing salt in the wounds by wearing racist costumes based in traditional dress that survivors were forbidden to wear?

Also the people who caused the suffering are not all long dead. Some boring schools were operating in the 1970s

Yes, Myrtle. Unless you have the time and energy to include every possible nation, age group and circumstances in a video addressing these issues your points have no validity. Heaven forbid that you assume that your audience has enough intelligence to realise that this is a global issue and that unless you specifically say that Seven year old Amelia Brown from Bath shouldn't dress up either then we should assume that it doesn't apply to everyone.

Coren, anyone? Or is that inconvenient?

“The people who caused all the suffering are long dead. The effects live on, for sure. Should it rule people's lives?”
The chances are that the people who beat up my FIL because he was a thick Paddy and probably a terrorist as well are probably still alive.Boris Johnson of “pickaninny” fame is still alive. “Strange tint” woman is still alive.
And no, it shouldn’t rule people’s lives. But it shouldn’t be obliterated from their lives either.

This stuff didn’t happen in some place called “the past”. My mother knew people as a child who didn’t think killing Native Australians was a crime. I have cousins my own age in Australia who vocally resented Native Australian children getting “special treatment” in schools. It’s still going on!

Should it rule people's lives?

Not rule lives, change them. Our ancestors made big mistakes, we should learn from them. They treated other people and cultures as beneath them, surely we can be better people by showing other humans respect and dignity. All it takes is not dressing up as part of their culture uninvited, how simple is that?

I am not a racist. There is nothing I have said that is racist or indicates that I am “clinging onto racism”. I worked for 39 years as a teacher in inner London schools and was, and continue to be, committed to the ideals of comprehensive education. Disagreeing with you on this matter is not racist. As I have said in terms of their relationship to the situation posed in the OP I am not convinced that the videos posted are especially relevant and I have explained why. I simply do not share your moral certainty about the issue of a little girl dressing as Tiger Lily for WBD. That does not make me a racist.

I don't have a Times subscription so I can't read the article(And I can't bloody stand Giles Coren so I don't feel especially inclined to, so I can't comment on it with any real knowledge but just because some people who belong outside the group occasionally take things too far(Tumblr I'm looking at you) it does not make real issues with racism/anti Semitism any less valid or important.

And members of a particular group can also be hurtful and discriminatory towards other people who belong to their group. Look at the use of the N word in black cultures. Some are happy to use it. Some are not and find the use of it to be harmful and derogatory. Just because some people in that group choose to use that term does not give me, as a white person the right to use it.

Reflecting on the OP.

In the beginning, I thought this was going to be a virtue signalling thread. I know Tiger-lily is a Native American pastiche, not like you peasants in your Disney princess costumes.

Instead it turns out to be an I know that some people will be offended, but I'm going to do it anyway thread.

Which is nice.

Oh so you don’t like Giles Coren so his perspective on being a Jew accused of anti Semitism doesn’t count. OK. That’s pretty racist in my book.

I am not convinced that the videos posted are especially relevant and I have explained why.

Would it be unreasonable to suggest that you actually watched the videos before opining about them?

Personally I can't imagine much more relevant information on the subject of the appropriateness of non Natives wearing 'Indian' costumes than videos and articles of Native Americans and First Nations people discussing non Natives wearing 'Indian' costumes. Would it help if I threw in a white person talking about it? Would their opinion be any more valid? Or is it just that they aren't saying what you want to hear?

No, I can't read the fucking article so I can't comment on what I can't see.

“Coren, anyone? Or is that inconvenient?”

Not inconvenient at all. I haven’t read the article, but from your summary he came up against a person who was either bonkers or mistaken. It happens.