"I’ve been very fortunate to cultivate a nice, sizable student/academic following to my writing. I was lucky enough to go through undergrad and on to law school, still I never considered myself to be an “academic.” The way I was raised, school was a luxury reserved for the extremely privileged who can sit and pontificate about anthropologists and law and math.

And yes, clothing.

This past week, I got a series of emails from some of my student readers asking what I thought about the Native girl on a show called America’s Next Top Model. Apparently, she wore some Pocahontas clothing on the show and some American Indian Studies students were uptight because they thought she should wear a Pendleton pencil skirt or an AIM button or something or other on the show. Evidently there was also some hubbub because “she [Mariah Watchman, the model on America’s Next Top Model] was not even the same Tribe as Pocahontas” and she is therefore furthering the notion “all Indian people dressed the same.” My response?"

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Gyasi Ross: Models, (River) Monsters, and John F. Kennedy (Indian Country 3/9)