dreamcatcher, please change your name.

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7000+ indigenous people and allies signed as of june 2021!

this website will explain why the cultural appropriation of indigenous people has to stop. written by an actual ojibwe person.

many of you have perceived dreamcatcher as being "attacked" or "slandered" - mostly on twitter. this website will plainly lay out the reasons why so that you can understand.

who are ojibwe people? what is their history like?

ojibwe people are an indigenous - or native american - people found in both canada and the united states. our communities have been in canada for thousands of years.

about 500 years ago, europeans came over to north america to colonize it and the people who lived there. they brought with them diseases which decimated indigenous populations, and by the end of the 19th century, had systematically murdered 90% of indigenous populations, bringing the popluation down from five million to less than 250 thousand - this is known as genocide.

the europeans pushed many natives into smaller communities with limited natural resources and took the rest of the land for themselves. these communities were called reservations/reserves as they're now called. these deals were called "treaties."

the relationship with european colonizers and indigenous people have not gotten much better since. in the early 1800s, the government sponsored religious schools to assimilate native children into euro-canadian/euro-american culture. thousands of children died in these schools from the physical, sexual and mental violence inflicted by the church.

these children were beaten if they practiced their beliefs or spoke their own language. indigenous people keep their hair long, and only cut it when they are mourning - and the church cut everyone's hair to the scalp. they wanted to mold native children into white children. they were not even allowed to keep the names their parents gave them at birth, and were renamed to white names. indigenous children were kept in these schools without seeing their family for months at a time, sometimes years - some never returned home.

when children left these residential schools, they were depressed, confused, insecure, anxious, developed OCD, PTSD, etc. it's resulted in intergenerational trauma, passing down depression, anxiety, family violence, suicidal thoughts and substance abuse to their children. it can take generations for the trauma to heal.

to give you an idea about when this happened, the last residential school was closed in 1996. my grandparents went to residential schools. this is not ancient history - it is still a reality for us.

today, what little land we were promised and owed is still not respected. many reserves are without clean water. indigenous women and girls are murdered, raped or stolen from us as a result of the fetishization of indigenous people. many reserves are also loosing their young people to suicide. a lot of people live in poverty. despite all of this, we're still a resilient people, we are still reconnecting to our cultures, celebrating ourselves, and there are now more than 1.6 million indigenous people living in canada.

so what does this have to do with dreamcatcher?

for a long time, ojibwe culture and other indigenous cultures were not allowed to be openly practiced. we were being assimilated - we were not allowed to be ourselves for such a long time. there are children out there who now have no root to their own culture, many who do not speak their languages, many who don't even know where they really come from as a result of our cultural genocide.

imagine our surprise when suddenly, everyone loves native culture! everyone is wearing headdresses, everyone is wearing feathers in their hair, everyone is wearing moccasins, everyone is beading, and everyone is imitating our culture for profit.

during the pan-indian movement, ojibwe and other indigenous items started to gain popularity when non-natives took our culture and sold it. suddenly, the culture that was violently ripped away from indigenous people... is now commercially sold everywhere.

so what does this have to do with dreamcatcher? a dreamcatcher is a ceremonial object from our culture. it's a handmade hoop with a web woven onto it. sometimes beads and feathers are attached to it. it's hung above an infant's cradle for protection. it's sacred, but dreamcatcher now uses it as a spooky prop and horror concept - it's not scary. they have also gone as far as including a dreamcatcher making kit in their newest album.

please understand that indigenous people and ojibwe kpop fans have always been opposed to the name, and they have always been vocal about this since debut - if you are just hearing about this issue now, you're late to the party!

why can't they continue using the word "dreamcatcher"?

if we dont say something now, kpop groups will continue to believe that it is okay to steal other's cultures without any regard to them. other entertainment companies, stylists, lyricists, choreographers, idols, and their fans see that dreamcatcher are getting away with racist actions without ever having to apologize - and so the cycle continues. entertainment companies will suggest native american concepts, stylists will put idols in headdresses, choreographers will think that it is still okay to war cry in their routines, lyricists will write in racist lines about native americans, idols will still willingly participate in racist, stereotypical actions and everyone's fans will be okay with it. then it won't be just a couple hundred staff and idols being racist. it will then be entire fandoms defending racism, being okay with racism, and actively engaging in racist behaviour.

why can't you stop calling dreamcatcher racist and making them look bad?

i think what a lot of people don't understand is that many people do racist things out of ignorance. some people choose to be hostile and hateful when they are racist, but often times, casual racism is a result of being completely oblivious to your mistakes. doing something racist doesn't mean you are a bad person, or that you're always going to be a bad person.

dreamcatcher, i'm sure, are nice women. i've been told they are warm hearted, they're kind, and they're supportive of their fans. they don't sound like bad people to me. they sound like good people who have done a bad thing that needs to be corrected.

but [insert kpop group] have culturally appropriated natives before!

trust me - we already know.

somnias like to bring up that picture of jimin wearing a headdress a lot. i think it just proves very clearly that they know cultural appropriation is racist.

bringing up another group to distract from dreamcatcher doesn't make dreamcatcher's actions any less terrible. we don't like to see any kind of racism in the industry, and we talk about it when it happens and anytime it's brought up. but if you think you're proving a point by bringing up other instances, you're only showing that you know that it's wrong and that you're trying to distract us from the main point.

many groups have done racist things in their choreography, lyrics, concepts, outfits, photoshoots - but not every group benefits from cultural appropriation every single day the way that dreamcatcher does.

but i know a native person, and they say they don't care!

not just in this situation, but in many other situations where an action has offended a large group of people, there will always be a handful of people who are numb to it.

maybe this person has never grown up on a reserve. maybe this person has white skin and has never been stereotyped. maybe this person has never been subjected to any racism in their life. or likewise, maybe they are so used to racist things happening that they don't care about what they perceive to be less important to them.

there are many reasons a person doesn't care about racism, but it doesn't matter. dreamcatcher, when shown to native people, invokes a feeling of anger and disgust in most. when you have a whole group of people who are offended or hurt, it's not your job to decide how they should feel based off of one native person - because we all have different lived experiences.

it's also wrong for you to be pitting natives against each other on purpose.

if you don't want to cause dreamcatcher any harm, why are so many people giving them hate?

many of you perceive native people being angry about dreamcatcher as hate without any motive. the thing we actually hate is racism - if dreamcatcher had never changed their name, if they had remained as minx, i'm sure that nobody would have had a problem with them. there is no reason to hate the members of dreamcatcher as individuals on their own - the reason they are getting negative comments is because of their group name.

many somnias also have to remember that there is pain behind cultural appropriation. hundreds of years of hurt. it's racism that hurts us, and that reflection of us shouldn't be all that you see. you should understand that many people lash out in anger, yes, but it's because we are tired of being treated like a joke, like an extinct species, like a myth in the media.

why don't indigenous people care about [current indigenous issue] instead of dreamcatcher?

trying to divert an indigenous person's attention to another issue is wrong. the issues that anishinaabe face in the usa/canada are things we look at and face everyday, some more than others. don't tell us to care about what YOU think we should care about.

it's possible to care about more than one thing at the same time. bringing up something traumatic in order to hurt us and distract us just shows us that you are acting only in bad faith. you are no different than HF - selfish, ignorant, and tone deaf.

one more thing for everyone to note:

previous information stated that E-TRIBE, the producers behind this music video: T-ARA's YaYaYa, may have had a hand in inspiring dreamcatcher.

i'd like to stress that even if E-TRIBE are not producers for HF anymore, the intention to fetishize indigenous women has always been a focus at HF.

in conclusion,

you can choose how you want to conduct yourself from now on.

you can choose to ignore all this information, you can choose to ignore all the native people testifying that dreamcatcher's concept is wrong, you can choose to ignore why cultural appropriation is a problem, and so on. you can choose to pretend to be ignorant, you can choose to be hateful, and you can choose to enable and be part of a problem in the kpop industry. that's your own choice.

but you can also choose to understand that kpop sales or popularity don't matter more than racist actions. you can choose to help natives get into contact with happy face ent. and put an end to this.

dreamcatcher as a group can change their name, they can stop using the dreamcatcher as their logo, and they can stop using the imagery in their music videos. they are great vocalists, they have amazing stage presence, they can be just as successful as anyone else - their concept is just wrong. they can succeed without stepping on native people.

you can email happyface entertainment here: [email protected]

you can leave a review here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/happyfacedreamcatcher/reviews

this is a suggested message you can leave, or you can make your own:

Dear Dreamcatcher and Dreamcatcher Company,

Please change your name and acknowledge you are profiting from Ojibwe culture. Willingly engaging in racist actions against Indigenous people will only hurt the company and the group's reputation, and sends a message to other companies that it is okay to steal a culture to profit from it as long as no one says anything. Ojibwe and Indigenous people do not want to see this behaviour in the K-pop industry anymore. Change your name.

you can also show support in the hashtag #DreamcatcherChangeYourName and refer this site to other somnias.