War bonnets, fashion and disrespect

Do you ever have one of those infuriating moments where you’re so angry and upset and you just want to kick something but you can’t because the stuff that you’re so angry and upset about has to do with people’s ignorant comments over the Internet?
I do, occasionally, but to be honest not as much as I used to.
The other day I noticed a trend on my social-media feed wherein my friends were sharing photographs depicting non-Aboriginal models in headdresses. The photos stemmed from a photographer’s business page.
How many times do “artists” and “models” have to be lectured on cultural appropriation?
How many times do they have to be told before they get the message that donning underwear and a war bonnet (the feather-filled headdresses that they think “looks so hip”) is just wrong and tacky and disrespectful?
Even I can’t get away with wearing a headdress. It wasn’t part of my tribes distinct culture and also I am not a male. I would never wear one, just as I would never wear a kippah or a bindi or even a rosary around my neck.
I am going to assume this recent social-media act of complete ignorance won’t be the last time we will see cultural appropriation regarding headdresses. Naturally this upset in the social-media world rippled across North America’s First Nations people, and along with the pleas and educational posts on the photographer’s page about taking the images down came supporters of this “art.”
The ones who say “it is just art! Let it be!”
I understand, yes photography is art. But can’t artists come up with something a little more creative than a headdress and scantily clad Caucasian women? Guess not.
Then there are the others who are there in the mix of social-media users for no real reason other than to cause trouble, a lot of the time referred to as “trolls.” It is a fitting word that describes them in two ways: how they troll for a response with their ornery words on a subject; and also how they are as unappealing as a troll from a children’s bedtime story.
They are the meanest ones, who often end up saying something like “well once you stop wearing our pants and t-shirts, we will stop wearing headdresses!”
As if pants and t-shirts, what they deem a part of “their” background, hold any spiritual or cultural significance to “them” as a people.
Is that seriously the best they have when it comes to identifying with their specific race?
In fact, once I interact with the ones who cause the most trouble and say the worst things, I realize that they also seem to lack the most cultural identity as a people. It is no wonder they are so rude to the significance of something like a headdress for some First Nations people and it is not surprising that they do not care to respect the cultures and values of others.
Whatever identity as a people their ancestors had when they left Europe to colonize North America has been lost, and is buried so deeply in their past. In the end, they can’t relate their own heritage to anything other than a pair of blue jeans.
It is sad, really.
That’s why I don’t get as upset over things like this anymore. Yes it is important to call it out when you see it, but it is also important to realize that the folks out there who try to antagonize you the most when you come to the defense of your people are the ones who are really lost.
Truly happy people don’t log onto social-media sites to destroy and attack others.
Those kinds of people are missing an important part of their selves, almost like a huge void in their soul that won’t ever be filled – a void so hungry for identity and to be complete that it will tear down others to try to fill itself with.
Don’t get sucked into their voids.