I’ve talked before about racist tattoos and have often compared them to blackface.

BUT I NEVER EXPECTED TO SEE AN ACTUAL BLACK FACE TATTOO.

This disappointing image is by well-known Marcin Aleksander Surowiec. You can read more about blackface online, like here or here.

Dehumanizing images like this, whether they intend to or not, help serve a much larger agenda: to perpetuate the myth that non-whites are non-human, an object that can be caricatured, or (in the case of war bonnets and, I would argue, black face) some/thing/ from a long time ago with no modern relevance. They subvert a long, rich, and diverse cultural history and help justify wage gaps, privatization of schools, mass incarceration, and healthcare inequalities people of color face the world over.

I wanted to make sure everyone saw this tattoo because of how much “post-racial” discussion there seems to be going around the internet. Racism is alive and well in every part of our culture…..

Elize Nazelie has started doing watercolor tattoos! If you guys have followed critink for a while you know she’s my artist (and her other stuff is out of control good) and I’m stoked she’s started doing this! I’m seriously just posting this because I’ve gotten soooo many questions about finding an artist who does this lately!

[Elize] tattoos at [Brilliance Tattoo], Boston, MA.

BOOM. Also, I would book soon because she’s currently one of two artists in the US that’s doing this kind of style now and since most of us can’t afford the plane ticket to Europe, I’m pretty sure she’s going to start filling up her schedule with these…

I saw a submission by J.R. Jenkins on FYEAHtattoos today of a jaguar- it seemed very familiar, so I pulled some photos up.

The left is J.R. Jenkins ripoff. To the right is the original by Stefan Johnsson.

Even when traced, the tattoo still turned out badly- and then he had the nerve to post it up on FYEAH.

Just wanted to share ;)

Email submission, which makes me super happy because you guys are like goddamn watchdogs. HOWEVER, it’s especially shitty because I know it’s one of my followers who has the awesome Stefan Johnsson piece and I critiqued it a few months back. [Here’s the FYT post.]

On the plus side, at least this idiot didn’t rip off the swords (which is personally my favorite part) and whoever decided to wear it is stuck with a shitty piece.

Bahumbug.

Body mod icon Stalking Cat confirmed dead

Stalking Cat, an international body modification icon, was found dead in his Nevada home November 5 at the age of 53. No cause of death has yet been stated.

Born Dennis Avner and a member of the Huron and Lakota nations, Stalking Cat was well known for his [extensive body modifications] which included near full-body tattooing, transdermal whiskers, extensive silicone facial implants, teeth filing, and splitting his lip and ears. Many of the modifications were experimental at the time and became more common only afterwards.

A former Navy veteran and self-employed computer programmer, Stalking Cat explained his body modifications were part of an old Huron practice no longer widely known. Having been featured on international programs and done countless appearances, Stalking Cat told BME Zine editors a few years ago that he “found fame, but never fortune.”

While the media obsesses over rumors of suicide and the “ethics” of allowing an individual to modify their body, those of us who choose to modify our bodies—even just a small tattoo—must remember that we had at least some of the way paved for us by Stalking Cat and other body mod icons.

I’ve posted about this before, but I 100% support @FYeahTattoos. So much so that it deserves another post.

1. Delacroix (and the other editors) never set out to create a blog like mine. From what I understand their goal was to create a giant blog full of diversity. They do weed out a ton of really scratch stuff but they’re the biggest tattoo blog online. (That I know of.) But they’re not super heros and, yes, a lot of bad stuff gets through.
2. They are doing a huge benefit to popularize the industry and aren’t getting paid. They pour hours of their personal time into maintaining it as an amazing resource. I didn’t understand how much work that took until the first week or so of this blog. If they could get funding to organize it, FYT could help change the entire industry for the better because of their diversity and scope of audience. (So go click their ads.)
3. I don’t think I’ve ever told dela (or anyone) this, but FYT was hugely influential in my own decision making for tattoos. I saw what I liked, saw what I didn’t like, and really started becoming more critical of tattoos. Others should be just as critical with not only tattoo blogs, but everything they see online, on TV, in the press, or in text books. #lifelessons
4. I created this blog, in large part, to give people the tools to be critical. It’s not FYT’s “job” to help people. It’s my belief that what I do, coupled with what they do, can help change a lot of people’s perceptions of art and tattoos and help them make healthy, well-informed, and aesthetically pleasing decisions for their bodies.

1 out of 5

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.

The Problem with Banksy Tattoos

Few things look lazier than a tattoo copying the work of British street artist Banksy. Say what you want about his work on the walls, but I found this image of homages to him online. Here’s a short list about why these look like junk:

• It just looks so lazy. It’s not even a silhouette. It looks like someone put an image into photoshop before they tattooed it.
• It looks weird. This piece was made to be life-sized on a wall—not two inches on your arm. The details in the face are all wrong in every single one.
• They don’t take into account the body shape. In Bansky’s original piece the balloon close to the girl makes sense. But on a body? Because the tattooists didn’t take into account space in the slightest, it looks squished on there. It doesn’t have the same flow.
• To outline or not to outline: check out the balloons. The ones with the outlines look lazy (in contrast with the solid red balloon) and the balloons without outlines look forgotten about.
• Specifically, the three pieces with text look god awful. The red will blow out over time; the name Ryan was made in Microsoft Word, and the thin “always hope” just looks sloppy next to the bold black outlines.