Here’s my least favorite tattoo. I picked it off a flash sheet because I liked the rose. I wish I would’ve just gotten a rose by itself. It’s a horrible racist mash-up of a sugar skull and a “gypsy” woman. I am not Latina and I just feel so wrong having it on me. I’ve had problems with red ink in previous tattoos, but for some reason the pink of her headband got horribly irritated and now is mostly scar tissue. I think it’s too prominent for a coverup and I really am unsure how I’d rework it into a better tattoo.

Damn girl, this is probably the poster child tattoo for cultural appropriation. And why you don’t pick things off flash sheets. And why you go to a good artist. But hey! Now you know and now you can make better decisions for yourself.

The flower is a little classic piece but the rest has no flow and is just so awkward. No grace to the hair, jaw, or facial features. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ripped the rose from somewhere else and stuck it on this weird thing. (More about [gypsies] and [sugar skulls] in those links.)

Go to a good artist and have them hook you up. I’m sure someone with real talent could help this along.

So this is cool! Found it on FaceBook:

My tattoo shows at my work place - at the museums, historical sites, powwows, and elementary schools I conduct programs for. I use my tattoo as an educational tool to spread Northeastern Native American cultural and historical awareness. My tattoo embodies my passion for Woodland Native American life-ways and museum interpretation.

To learn more about what I (the tattooed historical interpreter) teach, visit us at https://www.facebook.com/WoodlandIndianEDU - we offer teachers FREE historically accurate Native American coloring pages and lesson plans… and we post cultural information and articles for all.

For everyone curious about culturally significant and respectful tattoos.

Done by Bryce Pierson at Tight Lines Tattoo in Orlando, Florida. Bryce just turned 20 and has only been tattooing for about 2 years.

I’m going to file this straight under “stuff white people do.” Namely, turn women of another culture into a fetish. Let’s talk about what this piece probably looks like from the vantage point of Asian-American women, hmmm?

Asian women are everywhere. We rank No. 11 on the blog “Stuff White People Like” and star in a host of iPhone apps: “Cute Asian Girls” promised; “If you have yellow fever, this app is the cure!” “Asian Boobs,” which heralds our modest-sized racks, was a top seller for the App Store in October.

Now, we’re playing peek-a-boo in “Puff!” In this app, the user selects a photo from a scrolling selection of Japanese women, then blows into the iPhone microphone to lift the woman’s skirt and reveal her undergarments. The more vigorously the user blows and rubs the screen, the higher the skirt flies. Shyly attempting to cover herself, the woman yelps delightedly, wearing an inviting smile. “If the girls don’t react, try changing breath length,” instructions advise. “Winning a special bonus is all up to you!”

I’m infuriated at the thought of sitting next to some pervert on the subway furiously blowing and touching a woman who giggles adorably in response. But what I hate most about this app is that it feeds into an old and tired stereotype. The image of the voiceless, passive Asian woman is a common form of racism in visual media. She’s the “Puff!” woman - cutesy and obedient, she’d never kick a creep to the curb. She’s not too different from that saccharine Hello Kitty, the infantilized mail-order bride who promises to “love you long time” or the hypersexualized character in anime porn.

Passing off sexual stereotypes that reduce women as objects of so-called harmless fetishes is socially irresponsible. And it’s not harmless. By fostering a culture of behavior that denigrates one group of women, all women are denigrated. And that is unacceptable.

In 2005, a white Princeton graduate student admitted to secretly cutting locks of hair from nine Asian women. He apparently took the hair to fill women’s underwear and mittens, which he then used for personal sexual gratification. He even poured his urine and semen into the drinks of Asian women more than 50 times in the student dining hall.

In 2000, two Japanese women in Spokane, Wash., were raped by two white men and a woman who admitted to having a sexual fetish for “submissive” Asian women and targeted them because they believed the women’s submissiveness would prevent the assaults from being reported. In November of last year, police were searching for a serial rapist known for prowling the subway at Union Square for Asian women to follow home.

Contrary to their claim, tongue-in-cheek apps featuring “Cute Asian Girls” hardly “cure yellow fever.” Instead, by cashing in on insulting cliches, they only serve to spread the infection.

[source]

I’ve written about this several times by now. This is not some random item you have tattooed on you—women are real people and this is a real culture. You wouldn’t ever see a woman get a nondescript Asian man tattooed on her, right?

It’s about sexism and racism bro. That arm looks ridiculous.

you asked for more tatts to critique… so here goes… (be gentle, I’m new at this). apologies for the not-stellar photo quality, I’d take another one for you now, but I’d need to shave my legs first. and ain’t no one got time for that. 

(I then sent a private message asking about the “head dress” because I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Here’s her response.)

it’s not really ‘about’ anything in particular, the gypsy head was supposed to mean good luck, or good fortune, and I liked the idea of that. it was tattooed around the time my first novel was being published, so I was in need of some good luck. I never interpreted it as a “headdress” (with the cultural implications that has), it was part of the design that my tattoo artist came up with and I thought it was pretty badass!

Eek! A “headdress” doesn’t have to be specifically cultural, because tons of culture have them. [Check out the technical definition here.] But the problem here “gypsies” (aka the name the West put onto The Roma People) have their own specific culture that looks nothing like this. (The term “gypsy” itself is derogatory, FYI.)

Did you know “gypsies” have their own [national flag], even though they’re a nationality without land? Czeckasolvakia carried out the forced sterilization of many “gypsy” women in the 1970’s and 80’s—this is only a few decades after their mass extermination (between 800,000 and 1.5 million) during WWII.

We are talking about one of the most prosecuted cultures in all of Europe (I would argue all of the world) that is totally misunderstood. This random costuming of a culture isn’t trying to be racist—and I’m sure you mean well—but it turns an entire nationality into a myth or costume. It’s like getting a tattoo of black face and saying “this is my head of an African because I’m wishing for wealth.” Kinda fucked up, yeah?

So because I know this will come up, I’m not calling you a racist. But any type of art that presents an entire nationality of people without any history or cultural understanding—but simply presents them as a made up costume—is damaging at best, racist at worst.

At any rate, the banner color is kind of flat with a weird white halo around the letters which are suuuuper bold and will swallow up the little room between letters over time. The objects in the headdress itself are a bit confusing, regardless to what they represent.

delacroix:

Rebloggable, as requested.

This is a nice clarification on a couple of things I’ve talked about on here—including the really awesome question of “I want x tattoo… is it culturally sensitive?”

To summarize, there is a difference between continuing the awesome, ancient, and human tradition of body modifications… and creating a costume of a culture using body modification.

She also talked about [mohawks] as a follow-up which is a nice read. Hope this helps some of ya’ll find your way in this world :)

What do you think of this?  It’s a memorial to my cat, Elizabeth, who passed away.  I wanted it to be in the flavor of Mexican Day of the Dead and Virgen de Guadalupe.

It was done by the brilliant John Reardon who was at Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn at the time.  He has since moved on to start his own shop - Greenpoint Tattoo in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

This is pretty freakin’ cute. I saw the text before the photo (my phone takes forever to load) and was expecting something pretty bad / borderline racist. Most of the time, when people “borrow” from a culture, it’s really literal: ie, Day of the Day being a giant sugar skull.

But I love how just overall festive this looks. You have this really cool halo that can be seen in other Our Lady of Whatever images and is all crystally/cool, and the beads/flowers just make it look so celebratory. Plus the look on your cat’s face is just positive and wonderful.

My only critique is that the face is done a little weirdly (was the image you gave the artist frontal verses turned like this) because the right eye should be smaller than that, as should the right ear. But I didn’t notice it at first because of how sweet the over all design is, so it’s not really that big of a deal.

This tattoo is my all time favorite out of all of mine. Obviously, i’m a girl so i asked for an authentic dream catcher, but nothing too manly. I know there is no crazy features to it, but i believe that’s what makes it beautiful. A simple, classy, and beautifully designed dream catcher. Opinions?

It’s done well over all, but I don’t understand the difference between an “authentic dream catcher” and something “too manly.” Dreamcatchers have no gender. They also come specifically from the Ojibwa nation, but were co-opted in the late 20th century by everyoneunderthesun.

Fun fact: 12% of the Ojibwa (so, about a tenth of an entire nationality) were massacred in 1850 by the United States government. I believe that’s called genocide. After the Sandy Lake Tragedy, the United States continued to break treaties with them. But, thankfully, we can now buy dreamcatchers bought in sweat shops to show how much we honor their culture. Team USA!

It’s relatively important to learn the history of a cultural symbol before putting it on your body permanently. You could have learned this all from Google and Wikipedia.

That’s not true in the slightest. Japan was home to the world’s first artists—if you look at the Jomon Period, which began in 14,000BCE, some of the world’s oldest art includes little statues that are believed to have carved facial tattoos.

If these patterns are, as they are believed to be, face and body tattoos, it’s proof that not only is tattooing one of the world’s oldest art forms but that it may have started in Japan.

When Western fleets began moving into Japan in the mid-1850s to force the islands to begin trading, port cities began offering their knowledge of tattooing to sailors—which is how it got to the West! The photo above is from around that time period and done with traditional (non-electric) instruments.

Even today, Japan is home to some of the world’s most amazing tattoo artists and remains rich in history.

So no, tattooing is not reserved specifically for gangsters. That sort of assumption is why so many people (in every culture) feel the need in at least some point of their life to cover their tattoos. I won’t do a post on stereotypes because I’m sure everyone on this blog has heard some variation of:

• What are you going to do when you get old?
• You’re never going to have a job.
• You look like a drug dealer.
• You’re so pretty—you’re ruining your body.

I know I sure as hell wouldn’t want to see a post on this stuff cross cultures, so I’m going to assume no one else wants to either.

by Joey Pang, Hong Kong

This is such a beautiful tattoo. (Thanks to @catjubs for turning me onto Joey Pang.) Since we’re talking about culture and quality of tattoos: look at the quality difference you can get when you use a different script or font. In this case, it’s only possible because I believe the calligraphy is in Pang’s language.

Look at that difference.

delacroix:

critink:

Here is a shitty, racist tattoo of someone who doesn’t believe in interracial marriages. Would you defend this because “everyone has their own views about everything”?

This might seem extreme, but it’s not a question of “racist or not racist.” It’s a greyscale:

• White Power tattoos (which is probably the worst thing you can do)
• A confederate flag (racist, but some claim is “historic pride”)
• A Native American (some think it’s cool, few recognize how offensive is)
• A kanji symbol (which really comes down to the individual viewing the tattoo)

So your body your choice. But understand the scope of your decision.

I truly believe that, if someone really has to ask why they shouldn’t get a tattoo that the race depicted in that tattoo would find offensive, they should just get the tattoo—preferably somewhere highly visible—so we know they’re fucktarded and not worth knowing. 

I’ve lost count of the number of tattoos I’ve seen submitted depicting skulls wearing warbonnets. And I’ve heard the “it’s a tribute” or “I’m honoring the culture” bullshit so much the words have lost all meaning. (Because nothing honors me more than a tribute to my people’s genocide, let me tell you.)

Here’s the thing that everyone needs to understand: the only people who get to decide whether or not something depicting a race/culture is offensive or counts as a tribute are the people who actually belong to that race/culture. It doesn’t matter if “everyone has their own views about everything, and almost anything in the world is viewed as offensive to some.” It doesn’t matter if you think it’s inoffensive. It doesn’t even matter if you intended for it to be a tribute. It. Doesn’t. Matter. If you never have to worry about yourself or your loved ones being stereotyped or discriminated against based on the image you’re depicting, your opinion is not and will never be valid. Full stop.

I know it’ll never happen in my lifetime, but I hope my kids or my grandkids, at least, get to see a world where people spend more time being outraged by racism than outraged that people find their ignorant actions racist.

I thought I should reblog this for anyone who doesn’t follow her, because I absolutely agree that it’s the people of that race/culture who should ultimately determine how they are represented. And, because @delacroix is Native American and I’m not, it seemed fitting to add this to the archives.

Here is a shitty, racist tattoo of someone who doesn’t believe in interracial marriages. Would you defend this because “everyone has their own views about everything”?

This might seem extreme, but it’s not a question of “racist or not racist.” It’s a greyscale:

• White Power tattoos (which is probably the worst thing you can do)
• A confederate flag (racist, but some claim is “historic pride”)
• A Native American (some think it’s cool, few recognize how offensive is)
• A kanji symbol (which really comes down to the individual viewing the tattoo)

So your body your choice. But understand the scope of your decision.

From @fromtheplant who wears the native pinup tattoo and is still, surprisingly, following me. (It’s an ask, otherwise I would’ve reblogged directly from her.)

For the record, I don’t think she’s racist. I’m sure she’s actual a progressive person based on her answer to that question. I wasn’t “ripping her apart”—I was talking about a general genre of tattoos.

There’s just a lot of misconceptions about what is and isn’t okay to do with Native American culture. I know she didn’t get that tattoo maliciously or because she believes in genocide. I just wanted to point out how racism can perpetuated by a culture unknowingly—same as sexism—in tattoos or any other form of art.

I recently got this done by my friend Crystal at Matrix in Barrie, ON.. Sorry for the quality (it’s not faded like it appears). Looove love love what your doing and think it would be awesome to get your opinion! Thanks!

I’m glad I finally got one of these to critique. The quality of the tattoo is nice—clean lines, fits the space, and over all just nice looking. (I’m sure the fadedness is just due to low contrast in the photo.)

But holy shit these “pinup-Indian” tattoos are racist.

Here are some great reasons why, if you’re any kind of non-Native American, you should never get Native imagery tattooed on you, much of which is taken from a great blog on cultural appropriation.

• Headdresses promote stereotyping of Native cultures.
• The image of a warbonnet and warpaint wearing Indian is one that has been created and perpetuated by Hollywood  and only bears minimal resemblance to traditional regalia of Plains tribes. It furthers the stereotype that Native peoples are one monolithic culture, when in fact there are 500+ distinct tribes with their own cultures. It’s like saying “European culture,” when really the Slavs have only little in common with the British! It also places Native people in the historic past, as something that cannot exist in modern society. They don’t walk around in ceremonial attire everyday, but they still exist and are still Native.
• Headdresses, feathers, and warbonnets have deep spiritual significance.
  The wearing of feathers and warbonnets in Native communities is not a fashion choice. Warbonnets  in particular are reserved for respected figures of power. The other issue is that warbonnets are reserved for men in Native communities, and nearly all of these pictures show women sporting the headdresses. I’s not feminism or progress—it’s an act of utter disrespect for the origins of the practice. This tattoo in general is hyper-sexualized! Which brings me to my next point:
• Sexual abuse as part of colonization
  The history of American colonization is entirely one of sexual abuse. Rape is used as a tool of war—it’s even publicly taught as part of our history of slavery! Many tribes (although not all) were either matriarchal or matrilineal. They were either run by women or daily tribal life was ran by them! These pin-up, big-boobed Native women are instead part of a history where we took their children to raise as second-class citizens in European-styled schools, then abandoned them. Where rape was used for war, and their family structure was broken up in favor of European-type families which subjugated. Even now, sexual assault and abuse runs rampant on the poverty-stricken existing reservations—more than anywhere else on the continent! If you look at Darfur, the Congo, or any other place in the world that has tons of resources we want, you’ll also see how rape can be used on a mass scale. But you can’t imagine seeing an African blood diamonds pinup, can you?
• It’s no different than black face
  Can you imagine getting this tattooed on you? By mimicking an entire race in a single image, you are drawing upon stereotypes to do so. Like my first point said, you’re collapsing distinct cultures, and in doing so, you’re asserting your power over them. Which leads me to the next issue.
• There is a history of genocide and colonialism involved that continues today.
  By the sheer fact that you live in the United States you are benefiting from the history of genocide and continued colonialism of Native peoples. That land you’re standing on? Indian land. Taken illegally by Europeans who came to the US could buy it and live off it, gaining valuable capital (both monetary and cultural) that passed down through the generations to non-Natives today. Have I benefited as well, given I was raised in a white, suburban community? Yes. Absolutely. But by dismissing and minimizing the continued subordination and oppression of Natives in the US by donning your headdress, you are contributing to the culture of power that continues the cycle today.