What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

thatvegancosplayer:

ehonauta:

polytropic-liar:

carmenbelli:

aka14kgold:

vulturehooligan:

   Another photo of the Navajos banning the swastika.

The document they are signing starts off: “Because the above ornament, which has been a sign of friendship among our forefathers for many centuries has been desecrated recently by another nation of peoples.”

[second paragraph] “Therefore it is resolved that henceforth from this date on and forever more our tribes renounce the use of the emblem commonly known today as the swastika or fylfot on our blankets, baskets, art objects, sandpaintings and clothing.”

I wanna shove this in the face of every white person who tries to justify their swastikas with what it originally meant. Symbolism evolves and changes meanings just as language.

Imagine the horror of that, though. Someone literally halfway around the world took something important to you, something part of your history (something part of your history from before you were occupied and decimated by an invading power, no less) and stuck it on giant banners behind them while they conquered and occupied and burned people in furnaces. I’m even more impressed, I think, that a group of people who were at the same time experiencing cultural and physical genocide, having their language and land and rights and property stripped from them constantly, chose to give a symbol up because of how it had been used to hurt others. What grace that took.

The photographer’s caption of the photo reads: Florence Smiley and Evelyn Yathe, Navajos of Tucson, Arizona are shown signing the imposing parchment document which formally outlawed the Swastika symbol from designs in Indian art, such as basket and blanket weaving. Four tribes, Navajos, Papagos, Apaches and Hopis banned the symbol which was in use by the Indians long before it came to have a sinister significance. [source] (the man in the photo is not named)

This stuff always makes me so sad :(

(via captainlordauditor)