LogoTV recently published a remix of Cher’s new video for her single “Woman’s World” featuring former Rupaul’s Drag Race contestant Wilam in a war bonnet style headdress.
The look is an apparent homage to Cher’s 1973 video performance of “Half Breed” where she wore a similarly styled headdress while riding a horse and singing. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6E98ZRaU1s
While the video may not go as far as No Doubt’s recent “Looking Hot” debacle, it still perpetuates a trend that is best addressed at NativeAppropriations.com. Follow the link to read, “But Why Can’t I Wear a Hipster Headdress?” http://nativeappropriations.com/2010/04/but-why-cant-i-wear-a-hipster-headdress.html
The song “Woman’s World” is from Cher’s upcoming album “Closer to The Truth,” apparently this video’s supporters are a bit closer to hate.
Read some of the Youtube comments below including one posted through our youtube site that received so many negative votes it is now hidden:
IndigenousAction
This comment has received too many negative votes
Love to the Queens! But Willam, please take off that headdress, you’re not honoring anyone. It doesn’t help when folks who face discrimination perpetuate it.
DarkWillUser
Nobody likes you.
willam belli
a dude half bred me last night.
WILAM
Matt Bauler
Don’t even bother arguing with this guy. He’s clearly a Native American rights activist, clearly he’s only going to see his own overly-sensitive way. You keep pointing fingers at Drag Queens saying they should know what it’s like to be discriminated against but the difference between drag queens and you is that they can take things in stride and not take offense to silly things that aren’t even meant to be offensive in the slightest.
· in reply to IndigenousAction (Show the comment)
Matt Bauler
You’re a fucking moron. YOU need to learn what a stereo type is, not other people. Native Americans wore headdresses. That’s not a generalization or a racist assumption…it’s a historical fact. It’s perpetuating factual history, not racist stereotypes. Cher did it, Raja did it, Kesha did it…Willam is simply recreating a Cher look and Cher is half Native American so you’re whole argument is just ridiculous.
· in reply to IndigenousAction (Show the comment)
Jason Green
You’re a complete idiot AND a race baiter. Half-breed represents two things: discrimination AND Cher being 1/2 white and 1/2 Armenian. The song was about daily discrimination she faced for being different. But, seeing how you didn’t already know that, have a fucking seat and shut the fuck up!
· in reply to IndigenousAction (Show the comment)
Manila Luzon
urinary catheter enthusiasts everywhere are demanding I remove my plastic tube headdress!
· 5 in reply to IndigenousAction (Show the comment)
Willam has always been disrespectful and if that is REALLY Manila that compared disrespecting sacred Indigenous American ceremonial items to rubber catheters then I am REALLY REALLY disappointed in YOU. Saying it’s ok for willam to do this because he is copying Cher is no excuse EVEN IF she were full blooded and Indigenous which she is not and she is not half and she is not 1/16.
Prior to 1973, Cher’s biography always listed her father (John Sarkisian) as being of Armenian heritage, while her mother, Georgia Holt, was of Irish and German extraction. But when Cher’s single “Half Breed” started climbing the Billboard charts suddenly she remembered that she was 1/16th Cherokee on her mother’s side. Which was a lie to try and justify her disrespect.
You are all on out home land, Native People have suffered the largest holocaust to ever happen and the colonists that did it are still here and still doing it while the 10 percent of us that survived are living in prison camps AKA “reservations”. We don’t want to live your european ways and we cannot wholey live our traditional ways because colonization has wiped out the Earth here and pretty much everywhere else.
We’ve been slaughtered, suffered mass die outs due to european diseases, some that were spread to us intentionally (small pox blankets), been lied to, signed treaties that have never been honored – not one and then the few that remained in the 1890s up until quite recently were taken as children from their families and forced in shckles to “boarding schools/residential schools” where many died due to abuse,all were forbidden to speak their own language or they would be WHIPPED or have soap poured down their throats and the abuse goes on and on, many never made it out alive and those that did are traumatized- these things are just a small sample of what you culture vultures that want to rock “Native American Woman realness” refuse to acknowledge or learn about. I bet BLACK FACE wouldn’t go over so good. These type of actions just serve to erase us further and we will not have it.
What is so hard about RESPECT and KINDNESS? Are your hearts really so cold? The nasty comments are unbelievable.
I’ll never be able to watch RuPaul’s DragRace the same way again- I hope no one posted as a queen from RuPaul – maybe those queens won’t appreciate your words and you could wreck their reputation.
Read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown to get just a very small inkling of what it is like to suffer colonization and genocide.
I know that me and some others will be praying that the ingnorant and unkind people learn to open their hearts and minds.
Peace.
Cher’s Half-Breed was not meant to be offesnive. You need to listen to her album. It is a story about a half Cherokee and White woman struggling about her identity. She never meant it to be disrespectful. She was capitializing on the Indian reforms they were doing in SF. Willam is only honoring Cher. Cher never means to be disrespectful to anyone. She is about an 1/8 Cherokee. Her mother is half she thinks anyways. I have much Native Indian in me and find it amazing that Cher honored the culture and did a song many can relate too. I am sorry if it offends you. Maybe War Bonnets need to stopped being sold to the puiblic then. I could buyy one now and wear it like she did. Would that make me racist no. She always honors everyone’s culture. Please listen to the album before judging her on one song.
P.s. Much respect to who ever runs this website. I didn’t mean to rant on and get so angry I had typos flying left and right. It’s just that those comments are so very enraging. I’m usually more diplomatic but their disrespect and nastiness has gone too far. Sometimes the colonists are so ridiculous I laugh, usually I try to stay calm and educate and once in a while I just get angry, like with this issue. So anyway please know I respect your site and writer(s).
Chi miigwech for all you do and share here.
Zoon
Very well said Zoongitigozi Noodin kwe and I agree with you in all that you say and am sure many of your Sisters and Brothers around Turtle Island do as well, Our People are fed up with all the goings on and we have all the right to say and let everyone know how we feel, its just that our people have been kept quiet for so long we have just kept our opinions amongst ourselves, that now our being vocal is hard for people to handle. So I applaud you for your wonderful words, never stop speaking…… Miigwech.