Login / RegisterNo Doubt article reinforces indigenous criticism
I found the commentary in your music section on No Doubt’s recent music video extremely ignorant [“ No Doubt turned itself into the PC police”, November 8-15]. It simultaneously missed—and in doing so reinforced—the point of the indigenous criticism surrounding the video.
It is irrelevant that the “Indians” in No Doubt’s video are portrayed as the good guys: the depiction is a promotion of a negative and false stereotype of North American indigenous peoples that misrepresents their astounding diversity.
Not all Native people in history were tomahawk-wielding Plains Indians fighting cowboys in the West. Further, the tomahawk’s use by nonindigenous celebrities is a tasteless and ignorant appropriation of Native culture.
Would anyone defend this video if the band appeared in blackface, regardless of whether the black minstrel was the “good guy”? Political correctness is not being wimpy and polite for the sake of appeasement. It’s about respect and justice for those who face oppression and prejudice.
> Alex Dobson / Burnaby
