Posted on 02/20/2009 1:10:37 PM PST by Fiji Hill
Racism Strikes Oxy's Party Scene Wearing Brown
Tefari Abel Casas Fuchs
Issue date: 2/18/09 Section: Opinion
Saturday, Jan. 31st., will be a night that I shall never forget. It was the first time I realized I was not safe at Occidental College. As a person of color, I have known my entire life that the United States is a racist state, but I never expected it so explicitly at Occidental College.
I am referring to the blatantly racist "Cowboys and Indians" party that a group of students organized off-campus at Soccer House on Friday, Jan 30th.
The next morning, I awoke to Facebook images and entire albums of students in stereotypical "Indian" costumes with loincloths and feathers. Some with their hands raised in the "how" gesture and others with their hands over their mouths getting in position to do the "Indian war whoop." Above all, however, there was one female student with her face actually painted brown, almost in the manner of the 'blackface' entertainers.
As I look over the pictures the perpetrators put on Facebook, the anger incited in me cannot be described. The ignorance of these people confounds me. For my brothers and sisters of color who attended this party, yet refused to raise their voices in protest: shame. You actively took a stance to engage in horizontal oppression, which is the act of one institutionally oppressed group oppressing another.
Students at Occidental College pride themselves on being socially aware and liberal. At this point in time, however, I have realized if an entire crowd of people can attend such a party and not a single person had the decency to speak against such a cruel act of racism, I have to think twice about Occidental's students.
Is this how you see me, a Native American? Do you see me as a stereotypical "Injun"? Did you calmly and passively sit through the Native American History Month performances with these prejudices hidden?
I can see how these people came to believe this. For many children in this country, the first exposure to Native Americans is the song "Ten Little Indians" and the Disney movie Pocohontas, which are both seriously offensive. In the nursery rhyme, "Ten Little Indians," these "Indians" are incarcerated, lazy and in the last, horrendous line, the last "Indian" "hanged himself and then there were none."
In the popular children's movie Pocohontas, the white invaders, sing a song called "Savages," where they sing "Their skin's a hellish red/ They're only good when dead/ They're vermin, as I said. . . They're savages! Savages! Dirty redskin devils!"
Is this how youth have been raised to see my people? As children, we are extremely impressionable and if exposed to such blatant racism, I can see why these Occidental students believed that it was appropriate, even comical, to throw such a party.
This racist "party" and its organizers honestly disgust me with their disrespect of my people. Not a month ago, we cheered when Barack Obama became our president, but now I see through the weak façade of some.
Would we tolerate a 'blackface' party? Would we attend a 'Slanty Eyes' Party? Would we attend a 'Beaner' party? (In advance, I apologize to anyone offended by these racially-charged words.) Or, an 'Overseer and Slave' party?
I would hope that the answer would be a resounding no, but now I cannot be not sure. Why do these people feel that Native Americans are a prime target for abuse? Did you think we are docile, or that we simply do not exist? Well, I am positive that I exist and am certainly not docile. As a Native American who is thoroughly offended, I demand an apology from the people who organized this party immediately.
So, if someone who is 25% Cherokee with some Osage and Choctaw mixed in, like me, refuses to be offended by a “Cowboys and Indians” party at a college, what does that do for the argument? Does it make the thin-skinned person who took offense on my behalf, without my request, a racist? I think so.
Circle the wagons!
Yessirree, this country is so racist we elected a black Communist president. STUPID many of us are, but not racist!/s
Its actually the opposite. People are intrigued by indians and they admire them. They admire cowboys, too. Hence, Cowboy and Indian Day.
As a Native American who is thoroughly offended...
You shouldn't be. Learn to recognize the difference between abuse and good-natured admiration.
” I would hope that the answer would be a resounding no, but now I cannot be not sure. Why do these people feel that Native Americans are a prime target for abuse? Did you think we are docile, or that we simply do not exist? Well, I am positive that I exist and am certainly not docile. As a Native American who is thoroughly offended, I demand an apology from the people who organized this party immediately.”
And as Native American, I tell you....GROW UP! This dumb ‘Injun’ is making the same mistake as the whining blacks, muslims, gays and hispanics...”IM OFFENDED”.....
SO WHAT? No law of man or God provides or should provide against you being ‘offended’. There certainly was no such thing in ANY Indian culture. They’d have told you to forget about being ‘red’ skinned and get over being so ‘thin skinned’ and probably kicked your butt. Your ancestors were discriminated against. Some were real victims. You’re not!
SHUT UP, Tefari ! What kind of Indian name is that anyway?
“How wonderful this persons life must be when she can expend this kind of energy on finding a reason to be offended.”
For sure! The ‘civilized’ (which most tribes weren’t and aren’t) way to address this would have been to organize something to show the valuable, redeemable qualities of his particular ‘tribe’...if there are/were any. With his attitude, I doubt it.
The personwho wrote this is dumber than dog crap.
Send the kid back to high school to learn English.
What? No cowgirls? Was this a gay thing?
The Oxy PC Police will appease her with some beads and a looking glass.
“In the popular children’s movie Pocohontas, the white invaders, sing a song called “Savages,...Is this how youth have been raised to see my people?”
Is that how you were raised to see Whites, as invaders? And let’s drop all the “noble savage” cr@p. Fact is your ancestors were savages by any definition of the term. They were a barbaric stone age people who had no written language, no wheel, no metal tools and slaughtered each other indiscriminately over territory. People of all colors and ethnic groups have been displaced, persecuted,enslaved, abused, slaughtered, etc. The sucessful groups put the past behind them and found ways to prosper and build new societies. The unsuccessful groups hang onto their hatred and victimhood for generations, outraged by stupid little things like partys at colleges. Colleges that wouldn’t exist if the evil white men didnt invent them, along with science, medicine, electricity, and a million other things. Good luck in the future.
Make that Cowboys and Indians of color, please.
Why were there no Arabs in Star Trek?
Because it’s in the future...
I don't ever think about them at all. Probably would piss me off if one of them got the last babka.
Anybody who identifies themself as a colored person has already established the us-versus-them mentality that makes them overly sensitive to situations in which racism can be easily perceived.
Is this a joke? Fuchs is a Jewish name, one this guy didn't have until recently. Tefari is an Arab name. How is he a "native american"? Casas is Mexican, so perhaps he is an illegal, and thus thinks he is "native". Here is his Facebook page, with his original "name" (Tefari Abel Casas -no "Fuchs").
What’s a babka?
I wrote quite a few letters to the editor when I was an undergrad--and they most certainly weren't "politically correct."
When I was a student at Oxy, the student body was probably as left-wing as it is today. In a poll conducted by the student newspaper, 65% of the students supported George McGovern for president. When Nixon won in his 49-state landslide a couple weeks later, I returned to my dorm from an evening class to find my classmates staring in stunned silence at the television as the election returns were broadcast.
Could he/she be related to Klaus?
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