I’m an Indian, Too

The recent debate on EW’s Facebook page and blog about the Diablos poster led to a lot of conversations about race, fetishization and how we conceive of and portray Native Americans, African-Americans, race and whiteness. Diablos apologized for the poster, pulled it and went to dialogue with local indigenous people at the UO’s Many Nations Longhouse, a pretty classy response to concerns from the community.

Here’s what Diablos said in response to the FB comments:

There’s been an unfortunate controversy over our “Spanksgiving Fetish Night” poster. In this case, we have to agree with our critics and take our lumps so to speak. The poster was in poor taste.

While fetish events frequently offend someone, this is a case where the offense was not intentional and poorly considered. The posters and facebook event logo have been pulled and changed. We sincerely apologize for the offense.

By nature fetishes frequently involve objectification, within the fetish community it is mandatory that it be consensual objectification. In this case we made a big mistake and didn’t consider consent of the community we were depicting. We try to be a completely inclusive bar. We host drag shows, fundraisers, bingo, fetish events, and we have a very diverse clientele.

We failed this time. We are very sorry!

This video by the 1491s came up in some of the comments. Favorite part? “Clueless” shirtless hipster in headdress.

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