IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE, POCAHONTAS

I came across a Twitter tidbit recently, describing how Dr. Adrienne Keene, an academic of Cherokee descent, pointed out to Netflix that their description of the animated Disney movie, Pocahontas, had an insensitive Eurocentric bent. Much to Dr. Keene's surprise, Netflix apologized and changed the description. Due to social media, this little transaction opened a big can of worms.

Just how sensitive should any racial or national group in 2015 be about the use of their groups' histories or symbols?

Couldn't the appropriation of a national or racial group's music, art, designs, and symbols be a form of admiration of that culture?
It could be, but just as often appropriation is done thoughtlessly, with no regard for or knowledge of the culture's history.
If that culture has been or is oppressed, then this casual appropriation feels like an insult and a theft.

Should a group try and claim control over the designs of their ancestors and culture? 

I think that may be impossible in this technologically connected world.

I think that instead of criticizing about appropriation, we should enter into dialogue with each other about what the symbols mean, and encourage at least some knowledge about who the original people really were and what their history was. 
If people become even slightly more aware, they might possibly in their minds honor the cultures by not casually using their cultural styles and symbols inappropriately. 

Where this line should never have been crossed.

Sports team names and logos. We would never imagine to see a professional sports team from the Midwest named something such as the Detroit Blackskins. Why then is it OK to refer to Native Americans with this same racist terminology? Just because it has always been done? Not a chance.

Two elements that burn deep in the hearts of descendants are historical genocide and slavery. Don't you think the descendants of these cultures might be entitled to carry a little extra sensitivity about their histories?

Part of the Native Americans' challenge in this cultural battle is that there are 561 federally recognized tribes, each distinct. Additionally, they represent a total of only about 2% of the U.S. population, making them politically invisible.

In the town my mother grew up in.

So for the obvious reason of 561 distinct tribes and cultures, there cannot truly be a "Native American consensus" strategy on this issue of cultural appropriations. 

Throw into this mix, the ill-conceived, dysfunctional reservation and land allotment systems, the rampant poverty and unemployment, the poor education systems, the substance abuse issues, and until Obamacare, the poor health care, and one can see with little trouble how the Native cultures' designs and symbols have been easily confiscated and misused by others over all those years and still to this day.

Unfortunately, on one hand there are Americans today that still look down on tribal citizens.
On the other hand there are those who romanticize that the tribes were just nature loving people who only wanted peace.

The cultures and their sagas were complicated. Not romantic. Not peaceful.

my great uncle Rex

I personally believe that living a modern life doesn't mean one is betraying the culture and the history of the ancestors. People who strongly identify themselves with their Native American ancestry rightly have one foot in the present, and one foot in the past. 

In the Plains where my Yankton Sioux great grandmother lived, the "Indian Wars" ended in 1890. That is now 125 years past. 

So today, 125 years later, the descendants should be standing independent, strong, and tall, with careful dignity and grace speaking out to others who have stepped over those culturally sensitive lines. 

And rest assured that the descendants will never stop sharing the stories of the ancestors.