A Small War on Thanksgiving...

... and some parents are revolting.

Parents whose children attend Condit and Mountain View elementary schools in Claremont, California, are up in arms over superintendent David Cash's decision to prohibit the district's kindergarteners from participating in a school function dressed as Pilgrims and Native Americans. 

It's been a decades-old tradition for the youngsters who participate in Condit's annual "Thanksgiving feast" to show up wearing feathered headdresses, fringed vests, sandals, and other stereotypical "Indian" attire - as well as basic Pilgrim garb: the stiff hats, the shiny belt buckles, dark boots, long skirts and sensible shoes for the girls. 

Michelle Raheja, an English professor who specializes in Native American literature and is herself part Seneca, wrote to her daughter's teacher:  "It's demeaning.  I'm sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation's history... There is nothing to be served by dressing up as a racist stereotype." 

This (and similar objections raised by others) caused Superintendent Cash to nix the costumes, which drew angry protesters to the school this week.

From the Los Angeles Times:  After a handful of parents complained that the Native American headdresses and vests were demeaning, cartoonish stereotypes, the Claremont Unified School District eliminated the costumes from this year's festivities, but allowed the turkey feast to go forward.  The protesters were evenly split between parents who supported the costumes and parents who opposed the outfits, and their discussion grew so heated that school officials called police, who separated the protesters on separate sidewalks, said Lt. Dennis Smith of the Claremont Police Department.

I'm about as liberal and PC as a fella can be, but this a bunch of nonsense.  It's a costume for chrissake!  (I do, however, think that children who are old enough to dress up for a function like this are old enough to be told that what they're wearing is ONLY a costume, and doesn't reflect actual history.  Who knows?  It might make a good jumping-off point for a discussion about Native American culture... reality-based, of course.)

Comments

[yobaba]

I am afraid I will have to respectfully disagree with the Pup's thoughts on this for a couple of reasons. Let's go beyond the "it's only a costume" argument and try to empathize with the folks who are sincerely disturbed by the "Big Picture". Being 'liberal' or 'PC' really has nothing to do with having the ability to empathize with other people. 'PC' is just another way of patting yourself on the back for being a type of hypocrite - it really doesn't mean you have any sensitivity for another person or situation, it just means you are playing along.

There is another situation going on in California right now where a group commonly known as a minority has been stripped of certain civil rights by the so-called majority. "This is Democracy", the majority has said. "The people have spoken". On the surface this is true; the "majority" did speak. But it is not democracy when one group is allowed to strip another group of their civil rights - or their dignity. It is demagoguery - the imposition of of the majority's will to disallow or demean a minority.

Just because something has "always been done" or "is a tradition" does not make it right. Like it or not this nation is made up of more than White Christian Pilgrims. It is high time We The People develop a true and sincere sense of 'political correctness' regarding the rights - and, perhaps more importantly, the feelings - of our fellow Citizens.

Good for superintendent David Cash. May he live long and prosper.

[novascotia]

The Plimoth Plantation reenactment museum has white folks dressed and working and speaking like the Pilgrims would have those original years. There is a Wampanoag settlement to accompany it, and the native people are part of the story, educating visitors in the reality of native culture and history. At the time of the Pilgrim's first years, they would not have survived without the help of the native people to teach them, and feed them. The natives were a large part of the first thanksgiving, according to accounts of the event by William Bradshaw.

The story eventually turns sad and tragic for the native people after that. It can be seen as a tragedy they ever helped the Pilgrims at all. But for the native people at Plimoth now, from many different nations, they still want to tell the story, and recognize their part in it, and teach visitors about their reality, not the stereotype.

Perhaps what is needed is not leaving the native people out of the story, in deference to the idea that it is too tragic to portray, or only native people can be the native person in a play, but to educate the school kids in a more accurate idea of what is native dress and culture. There are lots of resources out there - can't the kids, even kindergarteners, learn more about how a native Wampanoag would have dressed (no headbands with a feather sticking out, for instance) and be more culturally aware? Perhaps Thanksgiving traditions can be improved, rather than eliminated altogether?