Native Americans

This season Project Runway welcomed its first-ever Native American designer, textile artist Patricia Michaels. The show raps up tonight and the Taos, New Mexico designer is one of the final three competitors.

But whether Michaels wins or loses tonight, having her viewpoint and hand-crafted talents highlighted on one of the most popular shows on TV has been, quite honestly, a welcome change from several recent factory-made fashion appropriations of Native American culture.

The same way that evolutionary psychology (or at least, bad reporting on evolutionary research) often conveniently reinforces sexist stereotypes about the role of men and women in the 21st society, genetic explanations for alcoholism tend to reinforce preexisting stereotypes about certain ethnic groups and races

Isn’t it the best when you stumble upon an amazing book you just can't put down? That was my feeling when I read The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich.

My, what a week.

• Still reeling from the murder of Troy Davis? Check out "10 things anyone can do to help exonerate innocent people and prevent wrongful convictions" from The Innocence Project, and continue the fight for justice. 
• The first post in a series on queer identity and gaming is up at Yin Soaked Boy. 
• Have you been reading BFP's excellent series on Detroit at Feministe? The latest is on Rick Snyder's welfare cuts and going beyond "Capitalism." 
• Attention non-Native rock bands, fashionistas, hipsters, or anyone that feels the need to wear "tribal" wear, Media Indigena has a letter for you. And at Native Appropriations, Adrienne takes a tour through Urban Outfitters' "Navajo" obsession (behold, the "Navajo hipster panty"), and includes a sample of the cease and desist letter the Navajo Nation Attorney General sent UO several months ago.
• Laura Hudson at Comics Alliance shows how DC's "rebooted" Starfire and Cat Woman aren't sexually liberated superheroines, it's just more of the same old T&A.
• Shadow and Act has some excerpts from reviews of forthcoming Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights, which racebends Brontë's novel to feature a black Heathcliff who deals with race as well as class struggle.
• Hey, Seattle-area readers! Do you remember Reel Grrls, the nonprofit that Comcast almost defunded? Well they're having a screening showing student made films about—what else—media justice.

Let us know what you think in the comments, and tell us what's on YOUR radar!

First Lady Crew member, JB the First Lady, is a beat-boxer, emcee, performing artist, aboriginal youth educator, single mother, award winning actor, and member of the Nuxalk and Cayuga Nations who is "using [her] words to go upwards/not backwards."  Check out JB the First Lady’s brand new music video Get Ready, Get Steady after the jump!

If we're going to talk about voluntary sterilization—or even the simple act of opting to have few or no children—we've got to get everyone on the same historical page. While I tend to take for granted that people understand the history of forced sterilization in the U.S., as well as countries such as China that mandate single-child families as part of population control, it may not be a given that everyone understands the connections between modern eugenics, race/class/ability privilege, reproductive justice, and the struggle for voluntary sterilization. Much as I know loads of folks use it as a jumping off point, skimming the Wikipedia entries for compulsory sterilization and eugenics in the United States only gets you so far.

Lately I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with the hipsters and hippies who appropriate Native culture in various ways, as well as the hippie/hipster "culture" at large, and have become increasingly annoyed at their depiction/co-option of my ethnicity as a First Nations person.



by Jen Musari, on the Native Appropriations website

I know my parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles have had to deal with this in their time and it’s certainly not a new thing –but it’s 2010 and not only does it still continue strongly to this day – it’s taken some interesting turns down the erasure of true origins road. This isn’t a hate letter, or reverse racism (as if there were such a thing!). It’s also not an attempt to discourage you from finding out more about Native people – and in fact I strongly ENCOURAGE you to do some actual research and knowledge seeking so you might get our culture right and think twice about things like permission and respect before you act on your appropriation.

I'm in NYC this week for the 9th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII).

It's an opportunity for Indigenous people around the world to come together, advocate, lobby, and generally raise hell together across borders, lands, and laws.

This past Friday the Global Indigenous Women's Caucus took place and my organization, the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, proudly co-sponsored it, along with amazing organizations like the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development. The joint statement and position papers will be coming shortly.

The New York Times has a great article up about Cheryl Ziegler, an 18-year-old single mother from the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, who is also a boxer.