I am writing this letter to express my outrage at the erasure and ignorance connected with the recent article in The Miami Student written by Online Editor Scott Allison. Specifically, I am referring to the first image on the online version of the article, which features a white male donning a headdress and the caption "There's a debate raging at Miami University. It has alumni and current students talking. Is it too distracting or can we learn something from all of this?"
It appears to be credited to Hannah Miller, but I do not know if this is photography credit or caption credit. The issue of Native American appropriation "too distracting?" This completely erases the pain caused by mindless appropriation and reduces members of the Miami Tribe and all Native American tribes to nothing more than objects that are "distracting" when it comes to collegiate names, mascots and symbols. It isn't distracting in the least, it's important, and captioning what should have been an intelligent, thought-provoking article with such a flippant display of ignorance makes me feel ashamed as a
Miami alumna.
The important discussion that needs to happen around Native American appropriation needs to happen in a safe space, one where the issue isn't seen as being simply a "distraction."
Angie Spicer
angabel@gmail.com
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