Toronto Star, Wed Jan 30 2013
By: Laura Kane
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Bar patrons who wore feather headdresses and war paint to a “Cowboys and Indians” party on Saturday faced a battle they may not have expected. A horde of outraged social media users crashed the bar where the party was being held and demanded they remove the “racist” costumes, .
Experts are calling the flash protest of about 30 people rare, as it’s unusual for social media users in Canada to mobilize as events are unfolding.
Daniel Justice, chair of First Nations Studies at UBC, said that “playing Indian” has a long history of racist subtext. “No one would play Jews and Nazis,” he said. “The narrative of cowboys and Indians is of cowboys killing Indians. That’s what westerns are about.”
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