Dark Philosopher
Tinn Tinny
As someone who is actually half S'Klallam, and lives near the Port Gamble Band of S'Klallam Indians, I am not offended by the costumes/clothes we have on Gaia now. I believe that Gaia staff made them with good intentions, and it is up to the users how they choose to wear it. Hopefully with respect, or just to add to their avatar's look in a non-offensive way. Though to be fair, I have not experienced the prejudices of being Native American like many who live in Middle America and the South, because we have different cultures in the Northwest.
Then again, I am fairly light-skinned because of my mother who is from Croatia, and have not had problems because of this on and off the reservation. I have not seen Croatian clothing, but I am not offended by that either. I feel it is really up to the user how they create their avatar, and that most have no bad intentions!
There will always be those who do, but we can not blame Gaia staff/ designers for this, and we should not remove the items because of a small group of idiots. Instead we should ignore the idiots, not even berate them, we should give them no attention because that is likely what they are seeking.
Are you saying that someone who is offended and doesn't share your opinion as a privileged "light-skinned" Native American is an idiot?
What?? No??? You have read and interpreted that last sentence wrong. I am calling those who use the items inappropriately, to make offensive avatars, idiots, and that we should not remove such items because of them. But unless Gaia releases an item that is intentionally offensive, we should leave modern local politics out of a now international website that is generally aimed towards dress-up. Gaia has released other items that mildly reference past military's of other countries, some of which have a very nasty history in real life, that have been generally accepted throughout the community despite their connotations.
These items are never released to be intentionally misused. But then we always have that one loser who goes out and makes an avi that looks like Hitler and has a dumb username and farts about in GC and Chatterbox, who we cast side-glances and then proceed to forget about.
If you have noticed, the items that are Native American clothing/Kachina dancing clothing, are sold now from Global Imports, where at no point they call them costumes, and their descriptions are slightly informative and accurate.
These are the only items that I have noticed that are aimed towards Native Americans, and they're aimed generally at tribes from the plains areas of America. I've been off this site for a few years though, so there could be more and I just never saw them. But the ones sold at GI have been there for a very long time, and I think I remember them being at Barton Outfitters before we even had GI. I like that they moved from a costume store to an "imports" store, where the description is "Cultural items from all corners of the world." They even have parkas and mukluks from the arctic First Nations/Inuit/Metis. Are these offensive as well, or can they be used as warm winter clothes for an avatar?
I like that they have so much cultural clothing, from all over the world. It allows people from there to perhaps dress their avatar appropriately on holidays if they wish to. I would not be offended if they were to add the cedar woven clothing, button blankets or ceremonial clothing used in Potlatches of the many Northwest tribes. I would personally enjoy reading the descriptions they come up with to explain them. If they were to remove these items, shouldn't they remove the turbans, serapes, binyeo, khan dongs and any other cultural clothing? They were not made offensively either. Gaia Online can be a better version of our world, because when we see people misusing items, we can report them, and something might actually be done about it. But saying that these items can not be used at all I feel is wrong. Some users use their avatars for roleplay as well, creating intricate characters and backgrounds of alternate universes, and this item variety allows them to have a better character/world sometimes.
I hope I clarified my earlier statement, sorry. I tried to bring up many arguments to my case but I'm not good at topic organization. Even if we don't agree I hope this works as an effective devil's advocate for you.
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