The new Mogstation items represent a painful period for Koreans, please read.

[Jaywalker]

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Honestly, I'd like to ask both of you this particularly since you have different stances on the subject.

I prefer to be private about my own specific background (I'm not Native American), but I can say I'm talking from a position of being an ethnic minority who is very connected with my own culture and has lost relatives to genocide because of ethnicity. Wouldn't say at all normally, only mentioning here because part of how I reflect is in a "well how would I feel if this was in the context of my situation" way.

Right now there's a kind of crappy idea going around that if you don't belong to a culture you can't be inspired by, reference, or interact with that culture at all. That just leads to segregation and more limited opportunities to learn about or appreciate other cultures I think. There are some areas that are sacred or carry otherwise really heavy cultural significance that I can understand being careful with, but otherwise seems like people could stand to calm down.

I know you can both only speak for yourselves. I also know situations vary, like how some tribes might place heavy significance on headdresses while others don't. I do know I've seen situations where people not from a culture might (for example) casually run around in religious bridal gear from another culture. Stuff like that makes the person read like an ass for trivializing, and it's worse if that happens in cultures where people are struggling to reconnect with heritage. Especially with there being different tribes, I think a lot of non-Native Americans don't know nuance and don't know how to even start learning it. So there's been a blanket reaction of "everything is off limits" that doesn't really help.

Seems like you've both put thought into this with different positions. Next level negative stereotype stuff as a "can you not" area seems obvious to avoid. I'm just curious if you have any advice on how to ID spots where it is clear cut "this is commercial and fun and fine" versus "some reasonable people place a lot of weight on this thing and it might be good to tread carefully" when it comes to Native American influence. I figure there's gotta be some sweet spot between everything being weighty and nothing being weighty, but the loudest voices tend to be the ones who are the most sensitive so it's hard to figure out any kind of fair reaction.