Yep. Marty Two Bulls is extremely talented, and has very pointed commentary. His son is very talented, too.
Brucesays
This is a good and effective post. But I tried to analyze the idea of logos further by considering as a counter example the logos of the New England Patriots. Both the old Patriot Pat and the modernized Flying Elvis logos of the Patriots seem to me inoffensive caricatures of people. So I ask myself why? What is the difference? I think the patriots logos were trying to draw people (members of the dominant culture) with no attempt to give any further message beyond their old clothes.
But for the logos of the Atlanta Braves or Slaves, those drawings of people are trying also to convey ethnic membership in a non-dominant minority group, as are any additional clothing or posture. That is to say, for those drawings, it’s all about signals of NOT being just like the fans in the expensive skyboxes.
So my limited additional analysis is simply that for any logo for any team, to be OK, it has to be about a generic person whom the elites and/or the majority would not mind being called. And conversely, for any logo etc, it is simply NOT POSSIBLE to make an image of anyone not dominating society. Simply to turn any uncommon type of person into a logo idea is to try to turn them into a powerless object, defined by their differences from the “normal” person.
So anyone who doesn’t understand this should warm up their artistic skills by trying to create an offensive version of the Patriots logo. It’s hard. You’d have to get extreme. If anyone can bring themselves to do that, then they’d see how weird and dehumanizing it is to convert someone from being “normal” to being a stereotype. I would hope then they would realize that one can’t have an inoffensive logo of a person unless it is of a person that most people involved would envision as being like themselves.
What do you think of this tentative analysis? What am I missing here?
Well…I think there’s a bit too much privilege talking there. Anyroad, this part of your analysis got me all bristly:
But for the logos of the Atlanta Braves or Slaves, those drawings of people are trying also to convey ethnic membership in a non-dominant minority group, as are any additional clothing or posture. That is to say, for those drawings, it’s all about signals of NOT being just like the fans in the expensive skyboxes.
Sportsball fans who wear fake Plains headdresses, or do the ‘tomahawk chop’, or fake war cries aren’t conveying ethnic membership in a non-dominant minority. To put it bluntly, it’s white people playing Indian, like Indians are just made up chararacters, not real in any way. I’ve had encounters over the years with white people who are surprised Indians of any nation are still alive. They literally have no idea. And when white people do have an idea that yes, Indians are living, breathing people who don’t care much for being caricatured, white people respond in very ugly ways. There’s a very deep resistance to acting like Indians are living, breathing people, and a part of society. Anti-Indian sentiment in the States is incredibly strong. Where white people have had to forgo nasty imagery like this in other cases, like that of black people, Indians are still considered fair game.
A patriot is a concept, an ideal. You can put whatever face you want on it. An Indian is not a concept, and we have faces, faces that don’t belong on a fucking caricature of a cartoon injun. I’ve posted about this before, but here are some links that might help a bit:
That’s great!
Yep. Marty Two Bulls is extremely talented, and has very pointed commentary. His son is very talented, too.
This is a good and effective post. But I tried to analyze the idea of logos further by considering as a counter example the logos of the New England Patriots. Both the old Patriot Pat and the modernized Flying Elvis logos of the Patriots seem to me inoffensive caricatures of people. So I ask myself why? What is the difference? I think the patriots logos were trying to draw people (members of the dominant culture) with no attempt to give any further message beyond their old clothes.
But for the logos of the Atlanta Braves or Slaves, those drawings of people are trying also to convey ethnic membership in a non-dominant minority group, as are any additional clothing or posture. That is to say, for those drawings, it’s all about signals of NOT being just like the fans in the expensive skyboxes.
So my limited additional analysis is simply that for any logo for any team, to be OK, it has to be about a generic person whom the elites and/or the majority would not mind being called. And conversely, for any logo etc, it is simply NOT POSSIBLE to make an image of anyone not dominating society. Simply to turn any uncommon type of person into a logo idea is to try to turn them into a powerless object, defined by their differences from the “normal” person.
So anyone who doesn’t understand this should warm up their artistic skills by trying to create an offensive version of the Patriots logo. It’s hard. You’d have to get extreme. If anyone can bring themselves to do that, then they’d see how weird and dehumanizing it is to convert someone from being “normal” to being a stereotype. I would hope then they would realize that one can’t have an inoffensive logo of a person unless it is of a person that most people involved would envision as being like themselves.
What do you think of this tentative analysis? What am I missing here?
Bruce:
Well…I think there’s a bit too much privilege talking there. Anyroad, this part of your analysis got me all bristly:
Sportsball fans who wear fake Plains headdresses, or do the ‘tomahawk chop’, or fake war cries aren’t conveying ethnic membership in a non-dominant minority. To put it bluntly, it’s white people playing Indian, like Indians are just made up chararacters, not real in any way. I’ve had encounters over the years with white people who are surprised Indians of any nation are still alive. They literally have no idea. And when white people do have an idea that yes, Indians are living, breathing people who don’t care much for being caricatured, white people respond in very ugly ways. There’s a very deep resistance to acting like Indians are living, breathing people, and a part of society. Anti-Indian sentiment in the States is incredibly strong. Where white people have had to forgo nasty imagery like this in other cases, like that of black people, Indians are still considered fair game.
A patriot is a concept, an ideal. You can put whatever face you want on it. An Indian is not a concept, and we have faces, faces that don’t belong on a fucking caricature of a cartoon injun. I’ve posted about this before, but here are some links that might help a bit:
Offended by the Redskins?: An Indian Country Twitter Poll
Approx 80% of Natives Offended by Redskins: Per Random Polling of 2,000
A whole lot more here.
Dr. Adrienne Keene also addressed this at Native Appropriations.