Do your children play "cowboys and Indians"?

[nico1908]

If not, here is an explanation by Tom Dennis (Grand Forks Herald):

"The word is mores, and if the UND students who dressed up in American Indian costumes for a sorority party pay attention in sociology class, they’ll learn exactly what all the fuss is about.

 

A “more” (pronounced more-ay, the “ay” rhyming with “say”) is a standard of decency or manners in a culture. A classic example used at Wikipedia and elsewhere is toplessness: While a man who walks shirtless through downtown Grand Forks will draw glances, a woman doing the same thing will be arrested. She will have violated an American more — and such actions, like it or not, have consequences.

 

At UND, the students who went to the party smeared in red paint and dressed in stereotypical Indian outfits violated a recent but very powerful American more: namely, Thou Shalt Not Traffic in Ethnic Stereotypes, especially when thou art not a member of that ethnic group.

 

But why? Why must Thou Shalt Not do such things? Comments on the Herald’s Web site posed many variations on that question, often accompanied by a rant against political correctness and a yearning for the bygone days when playing “cowboys and Indians” was an innocent childhood pastime.

 

The answer, of course, is that social mores change — and one of the most important changes of the past generation is our society’s open intolerance for certain racial and ethnic stereotyping.

 

It used to be common for people to tell ethnic jokes. It isn’t any more. It used to be common to hear ethnic slurs in conversation. That’s gone, too.

 

It used to be common for Hollywood Westerns to feature Indians saying “How!” and “Ugh!”, for black vaudevillians (or white actors in blackface) to “shuck and jive” on stage and for wartime propaganda to feature wildly caricatured “Japs” and “Huns.”

 

But that’s changed. And here’s the deal: In the eyes of most Americans, this change has been a very good thing.

 

On balance, we’re a better society — even a much better society — for our new insistence on treating other ethnic groups with respect. Are there excesses? Yes. Are there hypocrisies — for example, letting certain individuals or groups “get away with” words or conduct that would cause an uproar if offered up by anyone else? Absolutely.

 

And are there disagreements over what constitutes stereotyping, as the dispute over UND’s Fighting Sioux nickname shows? You bet.

 

But there’s also a broader point, which is this: On many core issues, there is not much disagreement at all. America has come a long way since the 1950s, as Barack Obama’s candidacy for the presidency shows. And a big part of modern race relations is a broad, societywide disapproval of raw stereotyping.

 

So, you can’t tell ethnic jokes in the workplace. (Well, you can; but if you do, you’ll be fired.) You can’t use ethnic slurs in conversation. You can’t claim certain ethnicities are inferior to others.

 

And you can’t dress up like cartoon parodies of American Indians. The UND students should have known better."

 

Tom Dennis for the Grand Forks Herald  (source here) after a discrimination complaint filed against a UND sorority (source here).

If they do: How come they don't play "masters and slaves"? Or "Germans and Jews"? ...
 

Comments

[annafugazzi.livejournal.com]

Bless him.

I understand there is such a thing as getting overly sensitive, and that sometimes political correctness goes too far. But on the whole, would I prefer to live in a society and a time where kids who didn't mean to be racist are taken to task for their thoughtless actions, or one where it's perfectly acceptable for teachers, politicians and clergy to make sweeping generalisations or rude jokes about drunken Indians, with no consequence for their actions?

Gee, that's a tough one...

[nico1908.livejournal.com]

Well, at least those students are far from being the worst example of wearing tasteless costumes. That dubious honor goes to Prince Harry! LOL