END RACIAL BIGOTRY NOW! Media Exploitation **note: scan received in black and white..color added for emphasis

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 To     Jolcelyn Dingle, Executive Director     Kiema Mayo, Editor
          Dennis Page, Publisher                      Stanley Harris, President
 
 Re     Spring 1999 issue of Honey magazine
 Date  March 5, 1999
 
 As an Eastern Cherokee woman I find the cover (Honey magazine, Spring 1999)
 and subsequent photographs of a traditional American Indian headdress used
 as a fashion accessory (to a bikini) to be patently offensive and a dishonor to Americas Indian people and to our  ancestors. The bikini has obviously been designed on traditional American Indian regalia and clothing. Model "Left Eye" Lopes has her hand over her forehead in a stereotypical pose...perhaps looking for "buffalo"  that usually accompanies some monosyllabic fool saying "how" instead of hello or greetings. The cover is entitled "Pow Wow Power" and the intent and impact is all too clear. I do not appreciate our traditional Pow-Wows
 being reduced to a sexual definition. This is totally outrageous, and a
 great disrespect at many levels. Your magazine has designed and created
 this fanciful (and overtly sexual) look (too many  Disney movies, perhaps) fully endorsing and adding to the disrespectful way that mainstream society and culture portrays us through sports team mascots and corporate icons.
 
 These headdresses were not just made and worn by anyone. They had to be
 earned and the person wearing them garnered great respect for their wisdom
 and knowledge. When we see our warriors wearing headdresses we know that they have achieved greatness in their lives through good accomplishments.
 Headdresses are not casually passed around or borrowed or lent out under
 any circumstances. For anyone to assume and presume that they can just wear
 a headdress is a great sacrilege...a misappropriation of our culture...of
 our identity. The item has been used to trivialize the very meaning of who
 our leaders and chiefs are and of the great importance they hold in our daily lives and in our hearts, minds, and memories from the past. The headdresses are not
 called war bonnets...another phony baloney Hollywood bastardization of our
 history...supporting the tradition of everyone in this country who feels
 that it is permissible to "play indian" whether at Halloween, Thanksgiving, movies, television programs, or on covers of magazines.
 
 That this disrespect and dishonor has come from a minority-based
 publication is of great concern. I urge you to quickly find yourselves a copy of "Black Issues in Higher Education"(June 11, 1998) and read the
 article entitled "Plotting the Assassination of Little Red Sambo." If that
 is not enough I urge you to get a copy of the documentary "In Whose Honor" which has appeared on many PBS stations. Books written by American Indian authors/researchers/educators like Vine Deloria Jr. and Ward Churchill would be
 beneficial to people seeking truth on racial matters, and it is clear that your staff needs to be educated about the devastating racism that American Indian people deal with every single day. These corrupting visual images and so-called clever plays on words contribute to that racism and stereotyping. Perhaps you should be
 looking back into history to see how minstrelsy cartoons contributed to the
 pervasive images of Little Black Sambo that so haunt African American
 people today.
 
 Your magazine owes American Indian people a great apology and an action of
 regret for this humiliation.
 I urge you to think past your inherent freedoms of press and expression to
 consider that when these freedoms are used to objectify and dishonor an
 ethnic group of people then what freedoms have you really cherished and
 shared. Freedom of the press means nothing when you use it to demean and
 humiliate people and their traditions. You are reinforcing stereotypes and
 teaching children and youngsters (of all ethnic and religious backgrounds)
 that these dishonors are acceptable...that us Indians have little value except to be mocked. You should be ashamed.
 
 {Signed}
Catherine R. Davids, Michigan Representative
 National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media
 Flint Michigan
 48504