Remove Native American Costume

[Lady Sif]

Okay, so I was glance back through the archives, and I discovered this:

Labeled as "Native American Costume"

This is really gross to see and I'm really surprised to find it on a site meant for children, and I would like to see it removed or at least modified to not be a really racist item.

To anyone not familiar with why this sort of thing is racist, things like this promote the idea that native american people and culture is something that people can just put on and wear instead of the actual culture of real living people. These sorts of customers are also often mockeries of actual native american outfits and religious items. Native Americans have to put up with this crap in real life too, where people will wear racist Halloween costumes of a similar fashion, often accompanied by some form of black/redface. It's been the subject of several movements the most popular of which is the following:



More reading on reading on this subject can be found by googling, I'd normally link to a few here, but most of them involve a few words that aren't quite allowed on CS and I don't want to risk the post being deleted.


Editing with a suggestion from a friend:
The item could very easily be turned into a Male Pioneer outfit with the removal of the feathers braids and tailpiece:

[vicasterology]

as an activist i fully support this!

[Senbonzakura]

I'm native american and I am absolutely fine with this.
It's an old native american costume.
There;s absolutely nothing wrong with it.
If you look up 'Native American' on google, you get a bunch of images with the same type costume. ^^

Plus I kinda found your post a bit rude but
yeah hi

[Eaglespirit]

wouldnt changing it to a pioneer costume just be disrespectful to the pioneers?
Im what some might consider a redneck (or other related terms) and I have no problem when theyre made fun of

This issue really depends on the person, as pennywise says, theyre native american, but arent offended.

as long as its not insinuating in some way that theyre inferior, which its not, I see no reason to remove it.
otherwise you might as well petition to have all other costumes related to people or their jobs removed, since they *could* be offensive

[RainWingThing]

I'm native american and I am absolutely fine with this.
It's an old native american costume.
There;s absolutely nothing wrong with it.
If you look up 'Native American' on google, you get a bunch of images with the same type costume. ^^

Plus I kinda found your post a bit rude but
yeah hi

I have to agree here, as I'm native american as well. I have an old picture of my great grandmother in my house and she's wearing a similar looking outfit.

If anything, this isn't meant to be racist and no one really knows what the natives used to like a couple hundred years ago. To me it's just what people guessed they look like. That's happened with tons of historical figures too, can't really help it. If you find it offensive I'm sorry, but from the vast majority I haven't really heard a lot about this being too big of a problem. Dressing a certain way isn't racist unless you intend it to be.

Honestly, I find being called an Indian more offensive than this. That's just my opinion though.

[Lady Sif]

I'm native american and I am absolutely fine with this.
It's an old native american costume.
There;s absolutely nothing wrong with it.
If you look up 'Native American' on google, you get a bunch of images with the same type costume. ^^

Plus I kinda found your post a bit rude but
yeah hi

I'm native american and I am absolutely fine with this.
It's an old native american costume.
There;s absolutely nothing wrong with it.
If you look up 'Native American' on google, you get a bunch of images with the same type costume. ^^

Plus I kinda found your post a bit rude but
yeah hi

I have to agree here, as I'm native american as well. I have an old picture of my great grandmother in my house and she's wearing a similar looking outfit.

If anything, this isn't meant to be racist and no one really knows what the natives used to like a couple hundred years ago. To me it's just what people guessed they look like. That's happened with tons of historical figures too, can't really help it. If you find it offensive I'm sorry, but from the vast majority I haven't really heard a lot about this being too big of a problem. Dressing a certain way isn't racist unless you intend it to be.

Honestly, I find being called an Indian more offensive than this. That's just my opinion though.

While you two may be okay with it, there are a lot of native americans that really aren't okay with with their culture being turned into a costume. Like I said, I can't post links here because of a few choice words in them, but a bit of googling will tell you exactly why a lot of native people don't like these things. If you'd like to discuss it over discord or another platform, pm me though and I can send you some links.

The issue isn't with having native themed items or clothing, which would be perfectly fine on their own, it's with having a Halloween costume legit called "Native American Costume". It would be completely unacceptable for CS to release a costume called "Black people costume" or "Asian person costume" and even though there might be some black or Asian people who would be okay with that, it would still be very offensive and stereotyping.

Also @RainWingThing ??? We actually know quite a bit about what native people (well some nations, not all of course b/c genocide and erasure of history. ) looked like hundreds of years ago, and I promise you a lot of them didn't look like that. We may not have photos, but there's lots of artwork that's been saved and recovered as well as oral history and preserved artifacts that allow us to know what were common attire hundreds of years ago.

[Ecko]

A big thing I see here is the images you showed are people dressing up intending to mock, make fun of, etc. compared to a dress up item on a children's site. Yes the images you show of real people can be disrespectful and hurtful to others who feel that way. But what about those who wear outfits in a respectful and non demeaning fashion like the dress up item? It is not there to poke fun and throw hate at someone, but to be a fun and cute outfit for a virtual pet.

So if I had a daughter who wanted to dress up like a little Native American girl for Halloween or just for the fun of dressing up I should tell her that's she's an utterly horrible person for even thinking of the idea? Is that so wrong that she wants to look like a native american even if she isn't one?

Plus if you are suggesting a male pioneer outfit as a replacement then I find that very insulting to all the great women of the past hardly regarded for their work and accomplishments because they were not men. Not only that but as it's been said now there would be a 'pioneer costume' which going along with the idea here would utterly offend those who were pioneers thinking that people would want to look like them and wear the type of clothes that they did.

~

Ok so I just re read through the comments and originally your problem was the very idea of a native american dress up item was unacceptable because of what it is. But then in another comment the outfit is perfectly fine just your problem is it being labeled a costume? So if it was labeled as native american outfit there would be no problem at all? Also you have people commenting how it doesn't bother them, but it doesn't matter because there's a lot of people out there who are bothered. And well if that's true then can't there also be a lot of people out there who are not bothered as well? I've always found in situations that negative comments are told the most over positive ones.

Just wanting to give some perspective that while a lot may be voicing their negative opinions there may also be a lot out there with silent positive opinions.

[TheMagicInside56]

*Makes points about having an issue*
*two members that you claim are offended say that it's completely fine*
*Ignores and says others are offended*

It's sweet to look out for others, but when people say they don't mind, don't force it upon them. If you were Native American and had an issue with this it would be different. You seem to be getting offended for other people's sake, and these people are clearly fine with it. Listen to what they're telling you.

[froggy.satan]

Okay, so I was glance back through the archives, and I discovered this:

Labeled as "Native American Costume"

This is really gross to see and I'm really surprised to find it on a site meant for children, and I would like to see it removed or at least modified to not be a really racist item.

To anyone not familiar with why this sort of thing is racist, things like this promote the idea that native american people and culture is something that people can just put on and wear instead of the actual culture of real living people. These sorts of customers are also often mockeries of actual native american outfits and religious items. Native Americans have to put up with this crap in real life too, where people will wear racist Halloween costumes of a similar fashion, often accompanied by some form of black/redface. It's been the subject of several movements the most popular of which is the following:



More reading on reading on this subject can be found by googling, I'd normally link to a few here, but most of them involve a few words that aren't quite allowed on CS and I don't want to risk the post being deleted.


Editing with a suggestion from a friend:
The item could very easily be turned into a Male Pioneer outfit with the removal of the feathers braids and tailpiece:

I agree with editing it, But this did come out on Halloween, and that past year I visited my ancestors home grounds and saw half my family wearing this, Now this may not be offensive to most native Americans, For instance, Cherokees, but to others its is

[Sixx O'Clock]

There has been plenty of time for people to speak out that they don't like this costume since its release, but most people, including those that are Native American, seem to have no issues with it. At the most, I could see it possibly needing a name change, but other than that, I don't see why an item that's been around for years that no one really has a problem with should suddenly be removed.
Plus, the issue comes along that some people have traded good pets/items for that outfit. What happens to them? Do they just lose out on something they worked to get? It wouldn't be fair to them.
And another thing, if that item was removed, shouldn't we also remove the kimonos and wigs that are in the shop right now? Those are things that traditional geishas wear. Don't you think it would be a bit unfair to that culture if another item based off of a different culture was removed, but the items based on their culture stayed?
I know the term "cultural appropriation" gets thrown around a lot, but it's really not such a horrible thing to wear things from other cultures as long as you are respectful to that culture.