Last Wednesday in class, my group had a very good discussion about using Native American terms or tribes as mascots. Jessica attended Milford high school where they were the Milford Redskins. She told us about how they decided to change the name after some parents sued the district. Jessica told us there was a lot of disappointment over the name change. Many students felt that they did not need to change the name since none of them seemed to be offended by the mascot. This brought up the point of whether everyone was completely truthful and forward with their opinions. How does anyone know that someone who may have been offended did not choose to stand up simply because they did not want to be different? What if those who truly did not like the name just wanted to be like everybody else and go with the majority rule? We can never be sure that everyone is being true to their word and spreading their true feelings.
The insider/outsider debate is something that I never really thought of until the readings. I basically assumed that if an author is telling a story involving a certain culture, chances are they belonged to that culture. The more we read and looked into different books, I was beginning to see that I was very mistaken. There are good books out there that are true to the culture and their ways, written by someone who did not belong to the culture. I feel as though if someone is well educated about a subject, they have the right to spread their knowledge. Who says that I, as a white girl, could not tell a story of Native American history. As long as I am well educated in the area and feel as though I can draw an accurate portrayal, there should be nothing stopping me. I am not saying that anyone can write whatever they want about whoever they want. I do love when you can get a true "insiders" point of view. It does feel more genuine, but I argue that as long as they are knowledgeable and true to the culture, we should not judge who writes the book.
2 comments:
I have to admit that i never really considered the insider/outsider debate before either. I knew that I always enjoyed true stories that shared peoples real life experiences. It was not that I disliked other stories, these ones just seemed to grab my attention. When I used to read fiction stories about other cultures, I would assume that the information was correct and gave and accurate description of the culture. I now know that this is not always the case. I never thought of the stories as being written by an "outsider" and portraying the culture in a skewed manner.
I agree with you Erin. Prior to reading the articles I had not thought much about the insider outsider debate. I also was somewhat naive believing that those authors who chose to write about specific cultures or group are a member of them, but as we learned this is not always true. Once I knew how to look for a false portrayal of something by looking at the authors’ background and possible research they either did or didn’t do I was able to see that there are often times more pieces of literature written by authors outside of the culture of group they are writing about.
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