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“The depths to which the New Yorker might sink when it comes to appeasing celebrities who want to place their creative work in the venerable magazine’s pages, especially the fiction section and humor columns, have yet to be fully plumbed, but sometimes they get it right. Not this week, though — Jesse Eisenberg’s “Men and Dancing” piece in Shouts & Murmurs, four vignettes explaining just how much some men dread dancing in public, is the dreaded double-whammy of barely-funny meets actually offensive. A quarter of his piece traffics heavily — and wholly unnecessarily — in racist stereotypes about Native Americans, and the fact that this scene of a “Squaw” urging an unnamed chief to perform a rain dance even made it to print is either a truly spectacular act of cynical Shouts & Murmurs celebrity column trolling, or total editorial cluelessness.”
– Salon, Jesse Eisenberg learns zero lessons from Adam Sandler fiasco: “Two Dogs could do a great rain dance”.
“Just because actor Jesse Eisenberg didn`t know the history of the word ‘squaw,’ doesn’t mean he is excused for using it, Marlene Atleo said.
Atleo was responding to Eisenberg’s story Men and Dancing in the May 25 edition of The New Yorker. In the story, he writes about a “squaw” telling a “Native American chief” to do a “rain dance.”
Atleo, a member of the Ahousaht First Nation, is a professor at the University of Manitoba, and some of her research has focused on language and achievement.
“I’m not surprised that Eisenburg used [the] word. I don’t suspect ignorance,” Atleo said.
“Historical ignorance only goes so far. It’s not an excuse and not funny.”
There`s a disconnect between historical use of the word squaw and the way it’s interpreted today.
The word ‘squaw’ is derived from an Algonquin word meaning ‘woman’, and has origins in New England and in Quebec, said Atleo.
Other tribal groups, such as the Cree, Shawnee Nation and Ojibwe, had their own variations of squaw as well.
The problem isn’t so much the word, but the pejorative nuance that non-indigenous people cloaked it with over time.”
– CBC News, Eisenberg’s squaw and chief schtick a teachable moment.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #25 – Squaw and Chief.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
