a l'allure garconniere

WHY

WHY WOULD YOU PUT A FUCKING BINDI ON A DOG

WHY DO I HAVE TO PASS BY YOUNG WHITE BOYS ON THE STREET EVERY OTHER DAY WEARING T-SHIRTS OF SKULLS WITH NATIVE AMERICAN HEADDRESSES

DO YOU NOT REALIZE HOW FUCKING STUPID AND DANGEROUS AND POLITICALLY CHARGED THIS SHIT IS

get the fuck out of my life/internet, i beg you.

fuck OBEY…….. and banksy too, while we at it

bad-dominicana:

the plagiarizing-ass, faux-street, corporate-dummy andre the giant/OBEY/shepard fairey can kick rocks. people who root for these wanna-be street artists usually dont know jack shit about the history of street art and dont bother to find out shit about shepard faireys known plagiarism among graff writers.

rooting for the fuckin millionaire posers who jack all the smaller, lesser known REAL street artists (andre’s dad is a publicity big wig and got him an in at corporations—he faked the funk the whole way and doesnt even do his own art, usually, most of the time he pays others to take the risk, the fuck is that shit?! hes a rich kid who got everything handed to him and gets credit for taking up POC’s art—- street art that gets them killed and jailed, and white boys like him venerated, w people of all colors wearing his hats and clothes that say “OBEY”. yeah thats the last person you should be fucking patronizing w such appeasements to their ego—a poser fucking plagiarist, appropriative upper class spoiled white boy? please DONT obey at all.),

observe all the “street cred” him and banksy get as they get as they go home to sleep in the comfy ‘burbs and lofts after all their exaltation for shit that gets the real innovators of that art form criminalized? banking on other peoples struggles and genius is what they are famous for. 

think about how 2 uppity white boys are the faces of street art…an art form started by POC.

what they are cheered on for is simply poverty tourism (coz for their types, visiting poor urban areas is what gives them cred, as if we dont fucking live there all the time), straight out plagiarism of artists of colors revolutionary images in addition to the appropriation of street art (in Obeys case and mind you he bit F.U.K.T.s line entirely too back when he first started. i cant even find links to it but if you dig you will find it) and urban cultural appropriation. shepards retort was he donates to african children and collabs w black people so he can steal as much as he wants from POC (including native american and other *tribal* prints to profit off w his clothing line).

come the fuck on. dudes the epitome of everything thats wrong w corporate-sanctioned art.

people act like hes “genuine” and “credible” and show off his tees like theyre counterculture when youre just rooting for the racist fucking system in the end. :|

reblogging to add links and more details: i’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, talking to graffiti artists in quebec city and thinking about the graffiti and stencils around the student strikes. but back to fairey: just the other day i saw a teenage kid with a hat with ganado print on it and was so dumbstruck to see the logo for OBEY on the back of it. and then i used magical google and realized they are some of the worst offendors when it comes to marketing their shit as “navajo” when it sure ain’t. just in case you need some illustrations for the more recent OBEY fuckery:

OBEY “navajo socks”

OBEY outpost shirt with “custom navajo embroidery” (my fucking ass)

OBEY “navajo dress”
i could go on and on but you get the point. this shit ain’t navajo, and marketing it as such is illegal, uncool, and borderline racist.

just a few instances where shepard fairey has ripped off other artists/photographers:

• ed nachtrieb
• dina douglass
• jack’d in da hood

great article here at justseeds.org:

shepard fairey, white entitlement and corporate interests (feb 2009)

usernames of white girls who tag shit #headdress #fashion

have usernames like:

• gypsylicious
• runfreelikewolves
• caught in a dreamcatcher
• gypsyocean
• the massacre alive

you can’t even make this shit up.

“G***Y MAGIC”

lionza:

so i just saw a phrase “g***y magic” and i googled it to get more sense of what “g***y magic” was referring to because it made me uncomfortable as fuck just looking at it. i found a large amount of wicca sites claiming to know the magic of the romani/dom people. i’m not familiar with wicca at all (asides from the little i remember when i was 10 and wanted to be a witch), so this whole sect of “g***y magic” really stunned me. my immediate concerns were its truthfulness and whether or not it was something that outsiders could participate in. there is a real danger of people borrowing from racist stereotypes of ethnic groups to create what they believe are “traditions” of this group or actually taking things that are not allowed. for example, a lot of people espouse philosophy that is apparently “native-american”, when it is just a made up jumble of racist stereotypes of what first nations people in the americas believe. so i’ve been looking stuff up to see whether or not my suspicions are valid and i found this post, which i will now share with you.

“it is not possible for romani or dom traditions to be taught and practiced by outsiders of the culture. these traditions are passed down through family and community. and people are only considered part of these communities if they adhere to various traditional connections to their ethnic communities. just throwing things together and calling them ‘gypsy traditions’ doesn’t work – the community has to welcome you and feel that connection between you and their culture. otherwise, you are gadje - an outsider. even those brought into the community through marriage or birth may not be considered part of the culture if they are detached from various aspects that make up that culture. yes, even with romani or dom heritage, you can be gadje. on top of that, the majority of romani and dom are christian because of the (white, christian, often focusing on conversion) dominant cultures they live in. so some of the folk traditions and beliefs are beginning to slowly die out, only maintained by the few. painting all romani and dom with these traditions and beliefs ignores the slow erasure of folklore and culture through cultural assimilation.

third, the distribution of traditions painted as ‘gypsy magic’ to outside audiences en masse is a form of culture appropriation. as mentioned in the previous paragraph, the cultures of the romani and dom people are closed to those they do not welcome. taking these traditions, or even things that one labels as ‘gypsy traditions’ (even if they have no actual relation and are thus compromised of stereotypical bullshit), is appropriation of their culture for one’s own personal gain. that is stealing…

fourth, many of the traditions of ‘gypsy magic’ or tarot is based off of ethnic stereotypes, romanticizing images and ideas that are far from representative of the people these stereotypes are attached to. after all, many of those that are slandered as ‘gypsies’ aren’t even romani! folks like the pavee may even be white and have their own traditions, thus hardly the depiction of dark skinned ethnic beauties in their golden jewelry and brightly colored clothes. what’s worse, these popular depictions of ‘gypsies’ in fantasy worlds such as games, books and movies suggest that they don’t even exist anymore! like they’re some sort of magical fairies that add color and excitement (or theft and deception, like that’s so much better!) to such environments and then magically disappear from the world during the medieval times. yeah, the folks that are suffering from racial, class and cultural oppression throughout europe and various other locations throughout the world? don’t exist, apparently. those molotov cocktails being thrown into their homes and fascist organizations terrorizing entire communities just for existing? fiction, apparently. and their voices shouting at the world to stop these assaults on their peoples? just whispers in the wind.”

i’m looking for more information on this (because i’m curious to see exactly how inaccurate this concept is) but seriously y’all, i think the fact that the phrase “g***y magic” relies on an ethnic SLUR is a great clue that it’s racist as fuck. the hints of cultural appropriation and reliance on ethnic stereotypes with the term is also RACIST AS FUCK. don’t use this goddamn phrase.

FILE UNDER: SHIT WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT A LOT MORE.

i’m thinking of making a little zine about racist slurs that still get used a lot under the guise of hip, whismical alternative communities. it’d be super short, just a little run down of the power of words, and a short blurb about their history. this is largely because there is a vintage company in quebec (run by two white girls) called “boat people,” another enterprise (run by two white girls, again) called “sauvages” and i saw a necklace at a zine fair called “sqaw.” [sic] i don’t think a lot of these people are being intentionally shitheads, but i definitely think it is a sign that there’s a lot of work to be done in the arts community in quebec.

don’t even get me started on how many goddamn fashion bloggers think “gypsy” is interchangeable with the word “bohemian” or “whimsical.”

would anyone be interested in contributing?