Stop Yandy From Using Our Culture As A Costume
Stop Yandy From Using Our Culture As A Costume
Why this petition matters
For years, Indigenous peoples have been protesting the use of our culture as Halloween costumes. We have made efforts to discourage consumers from buying these costumes that grossly appropriate our culture and sacred regalia through education, but it is clear that we have to go straight to the source.
Recently, Yandy has pulled their “Yandy Brave Red Maiden” based on the fictional show, The Handmaid’s Tale, due to backlash. However, when confronted about their Native costumes that mock a real culture, they refuse to pull them because they simply make them too much money ($150,000 a year), and they haven’t seen enough demonstration and outrage from the public.
Jeff Watton, Yandy’s chief financial officer, told Cosmopolitan magazine that they won’t stop selling the costumes until it “gets to the point where there is, I guess, significant demonstrations or it gets to a point of contentiousness that maybe is along the lines of the Black Lives Matter movement, where you have major figures in the sports world going to a war of words with the president, then it's become too hot of an issue.”
Sarah Chamberlain, the company’s former PR Manager, said in an email to New Times in 2017 that "The costumes are influenced by powerful fashion elements derived from the culture and are intended to pay homage to the Native American community, not to mock or offend."
Our traditional dress and regalia are sacred, and any commercialization of it is disrespectful in itself, not to mention the sexualization of it. These costumes contribute to harmful fetishes, and are completely irresponsible to sell when 96% of the perpetrators of sexual violence towards Indigenous women are non-Native.
Show Yandy that our community is intolerant of these costumes, and it IS too “hot of an issue” by signing this petition!
Sources:
Decision Makers
Jeff Watton- Yandy