Month: August 2018

A brief introduction to Pretendians

When using the term ‘Pretendian’, a mashup of ‘pretend’ and ‘Indian’, many Indigenous peoples will recognize it while some non-Natives may be left wondering. There are at least two different avenues leading to a Pretendian. We’ll be looking at the two most common. One will be familiar enough immediately. The second, not so much so despite her constant inflammatory pro-Trump rhetoric. Some of us have dubbed her ‘Pretendian of the year 2018’ though the year isn’t over, this one will be a hard Pretendian to top.   Senator Elizabeth Warren and the saga of family lore Ever since I was a kid, people have often told me, ‘my great great grandmother was Cherokee’. As a kid, it was just a weird thing to hear and something that seemed weird enough years later that it always seemed to be a grandmother and she was always Cherokee. Or more often than not, a Cherokee princess. It wasn’t until speaking with other Natives about it that I discovered that this seemed to be a thing with non-Natives, most …

Tattoos, artists and ink

For all the times that I’ve seen offensive tattoos with Native-esque symbols or items, there has always been one thing clear — there are at least two people at fault for the offense. The person getting the disrespectful image, and the tattoo artist who inked it on them. Some time ago, I took the time to approach artist after artist to ask why they would opt to do that instead of maybe informing the client that ‘this design may be offensive to Indigenous peoples’. By and large, the response was, ‘if the client wants that design, it’s not on me to police it’. Yet when asked if they’d do racist or Nazi designs, many would argue that it’s not the same thing. The difference is – one design offends everyone. One offends Indigenous people. Why the dismissal when it’s us who are offended? At the root of it, artists told me that as an artist, they should not be limited as to what they can do. In ideal, that may seem true enough. Limiting artistry …