Disney Apologizes for Texas Cheer Team's Offensive 'Scalp 'Em' Routine at Disney World - TheWrap
The Mouse House's mea culpa comes amid fallout from its handling of Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill
www.thewrap.com
The hits keep comin'.
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Disney continues it's winning streak - apologises for "Scalp 'em Indian!" chant at Disney World from earlier this week
- Thread starter The_Iceman2288
- Start date
www.thewrap.com
The hits keep comin'.
I've been watching the fallout over this all day on Twitter.
A few things:
1. The school is just crazy racist
2. The backlash was bad enough that the school deleted their official Twitter account
3. The school performed at WDW in 2020, with the full headdress on their uniforms
4. The name of the dance team is the "Indianettes"
Somehow Disney not only booked this school (and the music at the park program has an EXTENSIVE vetting process), but they booked them AGAIN, let them wear the headdresses for behind the scenes pictures, and didn't shut them down the second they started the racist performance. Just an all around failure.
A few things:
1. The school is just crazy racist
2. The backlash was bad enough that the school deleted their official Twitter account
3. The school performed at WDW in 2020, with the full headdress on their uniforms
4. The name of the dance team is the "Indianettes"
Somehow Disney not only booked this school (and the music at the park program has an EXTENSIVE vetting process), but they booked them AGAIN, let them wear the headdresses for behind the scenes pictures, and didn't shut them down the second they started the racist performance. Just an all around failure.
The behind the scenes stuff here is bizarre. Like, Disney apparently approved the headdresses and then changed their mind at the last minute, but is alleging that the marching band also purposefully downplayed what they were going to do in the videos they sent in so it'd get approved.
People need sacking on both fronts.
People need sacking on both fronts.
So they clearly knew enough to say "no" to the headdress, but nothing else set off a red flag?
Fucking wow
Fucking wow
Did not one person at Disney look at THE INDIANETTES and think, "Mayhaps this would be culturally insensitive"?
Wow. So the headdress was too far for Disney, but "Scalp 'em!" was just fine? Someone needs to clean house at the House of Mouse. Incredibly offensive.
Lots of times you see people and organizations like this use the excuse that the people criticizing their actions don't represent the actual minority groups they are 'honoring'.
In this case the Cherokee Nation apparently did criticize them directly? And look at their response
Just shows that, to no one's surprise, that excuse is also bullshit
In this case the Cherokee Nation apparently did criticize them directly? And look at their response
Just shows that, to no one's surprise, that excuse is also bullshit
Why would they possibly think about anything that isn't directly related to money?
So I've seen this school play football recently (last November) as they came over here to play a playoff game (Texas HS Football has playoff games play a neutral spot and where we were located was roughly the middle for both teams).
I can't say for certain if we would have allowed them to play had we known how far they go with their "school spirit" (I didn't even know what their mascot was until I got to the game) but several of our jaws dropped in the pressbox when we saw the entire cheer squad in head dresses as well as the mascot in full native american clothing but in their school colors.
I can't say for certain if we would have allowed them to play had we known how far they go with their "school spirit" (I didn't even know what their mascot was until I got to the game) but several of our jaws dropped in the pressbox when we saw the entire cheer squad in head dresses as well as the mascot in full native american clothing but in their school colors.
I have vivid memories of watching the news as a 10 year-old when they were reporting on the dragging of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper. Shit was absolutely horrific.
Imagine if you will that a group of high school students celebrated "White culture" by doing a routine that involved wearing White Hoods and carrying ropes. The same people I see calling the Left snowlflakes and crying about cancel culture would be losing their shit. They would literally pass laws across the nation making it illegal in the future.
Something tells me Disney would have stopped that though super quick lol.
But sure Native people are savages. LOL hilarious...
Something tells me Disney would have stopped that though super quick lol.
But sure Native people are savages. LOL hilarious...
High school marching bands get invited to perform at WDW sometimes. I did it 20 years ago.
As for why THIS SCHOOL got invited…who the fuck knows. Someone should've vetted them first and they clearly didn't care.
Just going to put this here...
There is video of them doing this, in headdresses, as far back as 2014. How the hell.
There is video of them doing this, in headdresses, as far back as 2014. How the hell.
yeah, I did this on a school trip back in 1997, and my school was... Toms River Indians
not something I thought too hard about 25 years ago, and now I look back and think how fucked up it was
I didn't know a single person I went to school with that I would consider racist. I am also gay and was out in high school there and was met with acceptance even back in 2002-03 from peers and teachers.
Growing up in that school district we were always told about the support / partnership with Cherokee Nation so honestly I didn't think too much of it back then. With what we now know and that support being revoked I think the mascot should be changed. I still have family and friends who live in that area and a niece and nephew in the school district so I really hate how the entire country is painting us all to be hateful, racist bigots.
considering their penchant for coopting everything "indian" i'm surprised they didn't call them a certain name
It's kinda wild and I'm not even from PNG but I'm from the area and have been there many times in the past when we'd play them for football games or UIL stuff they hosted.
This whole thing has been blowing up locally. Honestly, though, it's kinda what they deserve for their previous "not giving into the libs" type statements they've made in the past when concerns were brought up. (But I guess that's expected for small town Texas like this)
I dunno if its unfair: there's a shitload of bad judgements all around from the parents of those kids to the school admin terribly handling it. If it was one asshole kid, sure…but we are talking a-lot of community involvement here where not looking like a racist is more important than reflection and apology….which is how it got to this point.
It can be hard to find out that a group you were a part of were unwittingly perpetuating negative stereotypes against a marginalized group. It sounds like you're uncomfortable with being stereotyped based on the most sensationalized view of your group, and you wish instead that everyone would understand that you are individuals who are largely just trying to do the right thing. That's understandable. No one wants their group to be treated poorly purely because someone has broad, stereotyping, unfounded beliefs about your group.
I'm curious about why your main reaction to hearing "my school institutionally demeaned a marginalized group of people, for a long time, in ways and on topics that have received national attention for decades, with students actively performing racist characters while representing the school to the world" is "I hate that we are being called bigots". It's okay to care about your reputation. But tbh "no one I know there is racist" is kinda the community equivalent of "I don't have a racist bone in my body".
What I'm saying is to gently consider that the distress caused to your school district and former classmates and students now matters to y'all a lot, but it just isn't the important harm here. I worry that the urge to view yourselves as being inaccurately and unfairly stereotyped as racists, rather than to focus on the harm that is done by decades of institutionally supported racist performances, is part of the actual racism here.
I am not calling you a racist. I am not calling your district racists. I am not saying any of you are bad people. I am saying that racism is everywhere in America. And when we focus on the pain of being thought of as A Racist, rather than the pain racism causes or how to stop doing a racism on purpose or by accident, that's not the coolest possible way to handle the sitch. It might be cooler to be anti-racism than anti-being-called-a-racist.
Yeah, I didn't notice it when I was a kid because my school district avoided the trope (we were the Broncos), but MAN a lot of high schools call their football/marching teams "indians" or other really weird, sometimes blatantly racist names. Just like the NFL, really.
My band performed at WDW twice, once when I was a freshman and again when I was a senior. My senior year it was the jazz band that performed in one of the restaurants in Epcot - we got to walk through the underground tunnels to an "elevator stage" that lifted us up into the restaurant.
Luckily, my high school's mascot was The Knights.
Luckily, my high school's mascot was The Knights.
I got to do this in Tomorrowland and it was fucking incredible.
I think you're not living in our reality with this comment, the anti woke crowd would celebrate this
The party that thinks calling White people a racist is worse than racism itself? I guess my point was, if a group of mostly black parade participants chose to represent White culture as slavery and racism, the Right would absolutely lose their minds to a law changing level, but they are totally cool with this kind of blatant racism directed at Minorities.
Yeah, same. I think it was 2008 for me, but we did the WDW parade, and we were also The Indians. I think, even by 2008, the school had ditched almost all of the over-the-top Native American imagery that this school in the article uses, at least. The cheerleaders were originally called the Indianettes at our school, but that changed. They changed the name of the school paper and all that, they changed the logo to look like an actual local tribe rather than a cliched stereotype, and we never had a costumed mascot. But it was still the Indians and it was still fucked up. I think they finally changed it after I graduated.
Bro, your school district isn't the real victims here.
We've known that a bunch of white people dressing like native Americans and doing mock rain dances or whatever and screaming scalp them is racist for well over 40 years.
My school district was in the news for using confederate imagery when I was in school and I promise a lot of overt racism was being peddled as 'school pride' then too.
The district should look in the mirror and get rid of the mascot, songs and :checks notes: headresses.
It's a bummer, but you, your family, and friends might view it positively as an opportunity to show solidarity to the Cherokee Nation and prove that the community can be better.