Looks like it’s Increasing Cultural Awareness Week! Fearful lest garden-variety bigots like Cliven Bundy and Don Sterling hog all the attention, a couple fishbelly-white shanty-Irish D-listers in Oklahoma put in their bid for the Spotlight of Shame. Per Gawker:
… On March 6, Christina Fallin— [Oklahoma Governor] Mary’s daughter and the lead singer of the band Pink Pony—proudly posted a photo to Instagram that showed her wearing a headdress, seemingly unaware that it might anger scores of people in her mother’s state, which is still 9 percent American Indian. In response to social media blowback against that picture, Fallin, who is 27, released a statement along with her band, asking Oklahoma’s native community to “forgive us if we innocently adorn ourselves in your beautiful things.”…
[Flaming Lips frontman Wayne] Coyne, on the other hand, was supportive. In late March, he posted a since-deleted photo to Instagram showing three of his friends and a (sad-looking) dog wearing a headdress. The caption was “did our best @christinafallin pose.”On April 26, Pink Pony performed at the Norman Music Festival in Oklahoma. The crowd included not just festival attendees and those curious to see a band led by the governor’s daughter, but also members of the activist group Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry, who had organized a protest of the set because of Fallin’s recent history. At the festival, protestors held signs that said “NOT A FASHION ACCESSORY” and “CULTURE IS NOT COSTUME.”
Rather than shaming Fallin, the protests apparently egged her on. According to witnesses, Fallin, who was wearing a shawl with the word “SHEEP” stitched on the back, “performed a fake war dance while her boyfriend Steven Battles ridiculed the protestors and flipped them off from the stage.”
Watching the performance was Coyne, who had the same reaction as his friend Fallin. Sources told to BuzzFeed that Coyne was seen “pointing and laughing at the protestors.” …
Assuming from their surnames that both Fallin and Coyne know who their fathers were share ancestry with my grandparents on the barren rocky shores of County Galway, I apologize for these dumb micks not having been raised to know better. Stop digging your graves with your jawbones, even your skulls aren’t thick enough to bear the load of trouble you’re courting…
First well-meaning idjit to cry out against my croo-ell stereotypes has to buy the next round, am I clear enough?
(The Gawker comments could be included in a time capsule to explain the concept ‘clueless white people’ to future alien anthropologists. Further update from the Indian Country Today Media Network.)
Anoniminous
The local Apaches really dig it if, on first meeting, you greet them by raising your right hand palm towards them and say, “How, kemosabe.”
It creates warm & fuzzy feelings.
scav
Might have been misinterpreting their Postal Code all these years. Oklahoma is indeed OK, but that’s an 0k and it’s the combined hard drive devoted to brains and heart. That wind whistling is between their ears.
mai naem mobile
Every time I see a Mary Falin story I want to call her Failin’ Falin. I dont know much about her except that she’s a wingnut – refused Medicaid expansion, was at the GOP convention and the capital punishment stuff but Failin’ Falin is just such a great derogatory nickname.
dedc79
The last Flaming Lips show I saw, Coyne came onto the stage in a giant clear bubble and there were people running around in bunny costumes. There was a movie playing in the background on the stage that consisted entirely of japanese school girls murdering each other. He’s an odd duck.
mdblanche
@Anoniminous: That reminds me of an old Far Side cartoon.
danielx
Croo-ell stereotypes indeed, hah….having had the exceedingly dubious pleasure of graduating from a Jesuit prep school when it still had an all male student body, I know these Hibernian ballbusters all too well. As an Episcopalian I was immune to/exempted from a lot of the Irish Catholic horseshit, but I’m still all too familiar with that particular version of aggressive ignorance. It does make me wonder if some of those folks have ever seen the 1800s cartoons in which the Irish were depicted as grinning drunken baboons diving (literally) into a brawl…
gbear
Maybe the Gawker article mentions this, but the Flaming Lips drummer got fired because he went public about how un-cool this was. Wayne Coyne shit-canned him.
Lyrebird
@danielx: I’ve seen those cartoons, and my elders saw signs posted “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish.”
Sigh.
Best explanation I’ve found thus far of the headdress issue:
http://apihtawikosisan.tumblr.com/post/17269241821/an-open-letter-to-non-natives-in-headdresses
danielx
@Anoniminous:
Warm and fuzzy, right…kind of like the warm and fuzzies Geronimo got from watching his women hang white-eyed evildoers head down over a slow fire.
Mike in NC
When the Navy ordered me from San Diego to Norfolk, I had to drive through Oklahoma and spent a night in a seedy motel outside of OKC. Drunks fighting in the parking lot convinced me to stick a chair against the door. The odor of cowshit was overwhelming and disgusting.
That was my impression of Oklahoma many years before I even heard of scum like Coburn and Imhofe.
jl
@Mike in NC:
It is inhofe, not imhofe.
Now you have gravely insulted the imhofe people.
You have to go find out who they are and apologize.
If you’re lucky, they will be some family living outside Duluth, or something similar, and a nice card will do just fine.
MomSense
@dedc79:
Are they the band that did that Yoshimi Robot song?
Citizen_X
@gbear: Wow.
Fucking hell, Wayne. You are really not covering yourself in glory here.
Citizen_X
@MomSense: Yes.
danielx
@jl:
That would definitely qualify as Minnesota nice.
gbear
@gbear: Of course, I could have hovered over the freaking Gawker link and seen that the title of the story was ‘how-the-flaming-lips-lost-a-drummer-over-native-america’.
Attention to detail fail.
Tommy
@Mike in NC: I have been to many states. Often for an extended time. I’d think the state of OK would like me to have a better experience. I guess not.
Mnemosyne
@dedc79:
I realize that this marks me as Not Sufficiently Serious About Music, but every Flaming Lips song I’ve ever heard made me think, That’s what They Might Be Giants would be like if they took themselves way too seriously.
lurker dean
@gbear: didn’t realize coyne is such an a-hole.
dedc79
@MomSense: Yep. And that song about vaseline. (“She don’t use jelly”)
slag
Goddamn what a boatload of assholery. Who knew that newly zombified racism would arise with such a vengeance? How many more brains could it possibly need?
Is it competing with zombie sexism for some sort of prize?:
Cacti
Some photos from today’s May Day celebrations in Moscow and eastern Ukraine.
One of the soup serving little old ladies that Bob has been waxing lyrical about.
Oh look, another one.
dedc79
@Mnemosyne: My favorite song of theirs from their more recent iteration (I think they’ve been around for over 20 years now) is a pretty blatant rip-off of “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens. I think they ended up paying him some money in a settlement.
Cacti
Link fail, but here it is…
Get your official, May Day anti-fascist Qaddafi swag.
Ash Can
Obviously assholery runs in the Fallin family. And these delightful young people are proof that racism will, unfortunately, survive the die-off of the older folks just fine.
some guy
@Cacti:
things are much better in Libya now that NATO has gotten rid of the dictator. Men and Women no longer need to be in contact with each other at the local college, and thanks god for that. literally, thank God or you will be shot.
http://observers.france24.com/ar/content/20140430-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D8%AC%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B5%D9%84-%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A3%D9%88%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D9%86%D8%A9
NotMax
The ‘Flaming’ seems adjectivally correct, but methinks the wrong part of the anatomy is being used as the noun.
some guy
Crucifixion, it’s back and this time our friends in Syria are serious. It’s only a matter of time before these virtuous warriors put an end to the secular heathen Assad, just like NATO did to the secular heathen Qaddafi
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/30/islamic-extremists-now-crucifying-people-in-syria-and-tweeting-out-the-pictures.html
Ash Can
@Cacti: The current front-page thread at LGF is loaded with photos of Russian May Day revelers carrying photos of Stalin and Beria, racist signs against Obama, and Nazi banners. But fear not; I’m sure Moscow Bob will be along to explain to us that all of these miscreants are actually Ukrainians in disguise, and that the noble USSR — er, Russia — will unselfishly save Ukraine from itself.
Cacti
@some guy:
I feel ya.
The proletariat had a true friend in Qaddafi.
Assad is also one of the world’s great heroes of the working class struggle.
some guy
has everyone been celebrating International Workers Day with the appropriate festivities and mirth today?
max
@Mnemosyne: I realize that this marks me as Not Sufficiently Serious About Music, but every Flaming Lips song I’ve ever heard
I’ve constantly heard about the Flaming Lips being fab and such, but it was always from some slightly wide-eyed kool kid sounding like they were talking about Dianetics. I never HEARD anything that made me want to listen to anything. So I just filed it under ‘there are a lot of bands in the world’ and didn’t worry about it.
Guess I (unconsciously, intuitively) made the right call.
OP:Stop digging your graves with your jawbones, even your skulls aren’t thick enough to bear the load of trouble you’re courting…
Lot of folks wear headdresses to EBM concerts. It is a thing, that they probably should not be doing. So I could see Fallin making the error to begin with, but boy, are they totally like quadrupling down on things.
I apologize for these dumb micks not having been raised to know better
I’m Irish. And Chickasaw and Cherokee and Mohawk and I lost count there somewhere. No need for apologies – they’re just plain old Idiot-Americans.
max
[‘Speakers of the Obnoxious dialect, I do believe.’]
some guy
@Cacti:
your ongoing objective support for al Qaeda is touching.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: Word. I’m not a fan of the Lips. Not clever, not exceptionally musical, not charming, not passionate. Just….stuff.
tsquared2001
I cannot decide what I like best – the title (I can hear Mom imitating her dad) or the slur on their paternity (well played) or the offer to buy the next round.
Cacti
@Ash Can:
But you don’t understand, old ladies have been serving soup to those brave anti-fascists heroically kidnapping journalists in eastern Ukraine.
Cacti
@some guy:
Maybe one day I’ll be progressive enough to support military dictatorships.
It’s the only chance we have for a classless society.
some guy
@Cacti:
so you support both al Qaeda in Syria and Svoboda/Right Sector in Ukraine. Is there any fascist political movements you don’t support? Just curious.
tsquared2001
At least the Canadians won. The cool part of the late night open thread must come later since some guy and cacti convo is boring
some guy
Coming up next, Cacti offers a stirring defense of Boko Harum (those kids didn’t really need those arms) and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (they only tortured and murdered communists, so it’s all good) before moving on to explain why the Haymarket Martyrs were anarchists, and thus didn’t really have the working class’ best interests at heart in the same way the Pinkerton Detective Agency did.
everything old is new again.
Cacti
@some guy:
Not that I support them, but when did Al Qaeda become a fascist movement? You seem to have a Glenn Beck level understanding of fascist political ideology (i.e. I disagree with them, ergo they’re fascist).
As for Ukraine and Russia’s imperialist land grabs, what’s an acceptable number of journalists to be abducted in the name of anti-fascism? I know you can’t make a true progressive paradise without violence against a free press.
Cacti
Coming up next, some guy will wax philosophical about how Stalin and Mao really were friends of the working class, and how cracking down on freedom of speech/the press is actually okay if you’re sufficiently anti-Yankee.
srv
@Cacti: Did you miss that whole decade of Islamofacism?
Cacti
@srv:
You mean the nonsense term coined by Republicans?
some guy
@srv:
Cacti has missed a lot. al Qaeda are the brave freedom fighters who finally rid the Afghan people of their elected communist overlords, and can’t ever ever be considered fascist.
srv
@Cacti: Now Hitchens was a Republican?
Hunter Gathers
Check out some footage of the 1919 World Series
Ash Can
@tsquared2001: BJ threads aren’t what they used to be. Oh well. Nothing stays the same forever.
Cacti
@srv:
Islamofascism was a favorite term of well-known progressives like:
George W. Bush, William Safire, and Mike Huckabee
As for Hitchens, you really want to hitch your wagon to his unrepentant pom-pom waving for neoconservative interventionist philosophy?
srv
@Ash Can: Here, enjoy some Cher’s tour this year.
Cacti
My favorite progressive publication of Hitchens was his article:
“Did I get the Iraq War wrong? No.”
srv
@Cacti:
You loved him before you hated him.
Linnaeus
Though “Laurie” strikes me as a Scottish name. I could be mistaken, of course.
ETA: Assuming that your surname isn’t a married name.
Cacti
@srv:
Neither loved nor hated him, but the fact remains…
Islamofascism is a neologistic propaganda term used in service of neoconservative militarism.
Its first recorded use was in the Moonie Times.
Mnemosyne
@srv:
Was that taped before Hitchens had his anti-Clinton meltdown? If not, then no. Him running around calling Clinton a “rapist” was when I figured out Hitchens wasn’t worth listening to, and his Iraq War antics only sealed the deal.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
It takes a special sort of “progressive” to resort to neoconservative propaganda terms.
I’m torn on whether to call them Glenn Beck progressives or George W. Bush liberals.
“Islamofascism!” It’s 2003 again, booga booga! Support invading Iraq or you hate America!
Marc
@Cacti:
Yea. The far left really has fallen hook, line, and sinker for Putin. It’s totally bizarre to me, given his links to reactionary Orthodox elements, the virulent anti-gay agenda, and the virtual dismantling of any semblance of a free press, free elections, or a free society in Russia. The only thing that I can parse is that, if you believe that the US is the source of all evil, any opponent of the US is good.
Cacti
@Marc:
The GOP used to make a lot of political hay out of there being a certain type of “liberal” who was willing to hand wave away the worst abuses of leftist regimes, as long as they paid lip service to Marxism.
The Russian Federation in 2014 isn’t even nominally Marxist. On the other hand it is authoritarian, venerates the State above the individual, is ultra-nationalist, militaristic, devoted to a strongman leader, and believes it has the right to displace smaller nations by expanding into their territory…
All attributes of a fascist State.
Higgs Boson's Mate
It’s only right. Hispanics have given Fallin the indian name CoolArrow.
srv
@Marc: You must have been objectively pro-Saddam then.
Maybe brogressives are just, you know, anti-war.
Y’all are so… Republican in your black and white thinking.
@Mnemosyne: IDK, I just see Obots and Neocons dancing hand-in-hand, because I only see black and white.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: Hitchens wasn’t a progressive or a liberal. He started as a Trotskyite. And he was militantly anti-religious. Joining the neocon fail parade wasn’t as big a stretch as it might seem at first blush.
Cacti
@Omnes Omnibus:
And yet, near the end of his life, he decided to propagandize for a POTUS who believed he was divinely appointed to invade Iraq and said as much.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: In service to the larger agenda. Once you get on the neocon bus, you are on it.
gian
@Cacti:
have you heard of “keeping up with the kardashians”?
it’s an argument we have a classless society
see also “jersey shore”
Omnes Omnibus
@gian: No, those are signs of a tacky society.
gian
@Omnes Omnibus:
fine, alice cooper.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip86XtF-Kok&feature=player_embedded
is cold ethel classless tacky or creepy?
Steeplejack
@Ash Can:
And people complain when Little Boots shows up with cheesy music!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: “where’s omnes?”
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hey, let’s not get into the “Beetlejuice” zone.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Wouldn’t it be more Being John Malkovich?
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, I just meant too many references and the thing itself could appear, complete with “Numa Numa” video.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Ah. I see your point.
Mart
Back in the grunge 90’s era I saw the Flaming Lips at a fairly small club in Chicago. I thought they were a lot of fun. I am having one of those Woody Allen is a director I like – child buggerer, football is great – head trauma, Flaming Lips are fun – and led by racist asshat moments. Would it be wrong to play their four disk set on four CD players all started together after chewing on a mushroom cookie just one more time?
Mnemosyne
@gian:
The Kardashians were rich long before anyone ever heard of them, so I’m not sure how their buying their way onto television is proof of a “classless society.” It’s like saying that Paris Hilton’s record deal is proof that we have a classless society.
JGabriel
@Mike in NC:
Are you that wasn’t Pennsyltucky? It sounds an awful like where I grew up, age 8-18.
JGabriel
@jl:
Inhofe? Really? Huh. I thought it was Asshole.
Origuy
So the first May Day parade was held in Moscow since 1991. I wonder when Putin is going to tear down the Resurrection Gate and Iveron Chapel again so that he can run tanks in Red Square? (Torn down by Stalin in 1929, rebuilt 1994)
PurpleGirl
@Linnaeus:
Anne Laurie is her given (or first) name. Laurie is not a surname (married or not).
Linnaeus
@PurpleGirl:
Ah, I see. Thanks for the correction.
Anne Laurie
@Linnaeus:
Anne-Laurie is my first name. My surname is also Scottish, but my immediate ancestors came from western Ireland — presumably their people were among those Scots Cromwell sent “to hell or Connaught”.
And I’m a redhead, so there’s some Viking in my woodpile as well.
Anne Laurie
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Had to look that one[culera] up — made me laugh!
Another Holocene Human
Thank you for linking to Indian Country Today. I would have posted a link if you hadn’t, Anne Laurie. They’ve had good coverage.
Sad to see their website is getting more trolls as it gets more notice. I’m sure it will soon be inundated with vile trolls as badly as TheGrio and The Root.
Another Holocene Human
@slag: Wow. I am really floored. When I was still buying comics I found CBR (and even the forums) to be a pretty decent site, but I’m really impressed that an owner would be willing to take a stand like that and clean house. A lot of people who run websites wouldn’t. They’d rather cater to trolls, thinking the page hits are worth it.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti: Qaddafi was photographed with Hugo Chavez. QED.
balconesfault
So where would you get a headdress anyway?
Oh – from an Native American run online Trading Post, of course …
http://eaglespiritstore.com/store/catalog/viewcategory.php?groupid=100
Another Holocene Human
@Marc:
That’s pretty much it. They’re also suckers for someone mouthing platitudes they agree with even though their actions do not in any way back them up. They’re much like tea partiers and fundagelicals that way.
J R in WV
We’ve spent time in the native nations, mostly northern New Mexico and Arizona, enjoyed it a lot. Visited several trading posts, some have degenerated into Dairy Queen-level snack shops with a few imported “native” art items, others attempt to recreate the atmosphere from time gone by.
The best privately owned trading post we found was Toadlima at Two Grey Hills – they still trade with weavers etc for real art objects, carry balances for materials and trade goods. When you buy a rug there you get photos of the weaving being done and the weaver(s) holding the weaving after it is completed.
If you play your cards right you can meet the artists, shake hands, etc.
There is a monthly weaving auction at an elementary school, it’s remote with few amenities for the traveler, so we haven’t been to it yet, but it is a goal.
Touring with a native guide was interesting, of course it will depend upon the skill and knowledge of the guide, and how you get along with people. We took one tour when the opportunity to help others out came up, and delayed the touring while old lady in vehicle sinking into quicksand was pulled out. Some tourons seemed to object to the change in focus from touring to rescue.
We tipped big, because we approve of rescue, the cold melon was good, served while second rescue was under way. Second rescue was mandated by vehicle broken down in road out of park, to return to civilization we had to get the axle-broken truck out of the one-lane road. People objected to the time wasted.
Native Americans have a different concept of time, and don’t see it being wasted very often. Airline pilots seem different that way.
We got back in time for dinner, wasn’t even dark yet. And the guide was outgoing, well informed, and successful. Rodeo belt with many winning badges on it, for example. There’s a crazy sport with opportunities for physical damage! Hockey looks tame after seeing one of those rides!
ciotog
I had a student once who asked if he could wear a costume to give his presentation. I was pretty inexperienced as a teacher and said yes. He gave a talk about Native American history while wearing a headdress and some other regalia. And I had an Indian student in that class. It was the most painful ten minutes I have ever spent while teaching, and the student couldn’t believe when I marked him down for it.
Paul in KY
@dedc79: Am supposed to see them in about 11 or 12 days at Hangout Music festival.