In Defense of Warpaint

Let me preface this post by saying that I like Warpaint Clothing Co. and its owners (Derek and Travis). However, my statement comes only from an attempt at reasonable dialogue. I want to start by dispensing with the ad hominem and the irrational conclusions being jumped to by James at Oklahoma Citizen.

First, the issue:

1) James visits Warpaint Clothing Co. during LIVE on the Plaza last Friday. The language used at the beginning of his post conveys that he was having a good time until he went to Warpaint Clothing ("I had a good time for most of the evening....but towards the end of the evening I went in a store called War Paint Clothing Co"). He went into the store with concerns that "they were planning to profit off of native culture in an exploitative way." Okay, right here I'm thinking that this guy is going into the store looking for a fight. He thinks, because of the previous coverage of the topic that he's read, that Warpaint is exploitative, but he hopes he's wrong. I'm pretty sure that this guy has already made up his mind about the store, its merchandise and its customers, but I hope I'm wrong.

2) No, looks like I was right. The situation was worse than James feared. The store was packed with the burlesque show attendees, but he still got a look at the merch, and what he found SHOCKED him. It shocked him so much that he confronted Travis (one of the owners) about it in the store (then on the sidewalk after they asked him to leave) and then went home to blog about his experience on the internet.

The offensive shirt:


This guy was looking for exploitative material, and he found it. Or did he?

3) What ensues is a lot of back and forth arguing between the Warpaint store owners and James of Oklahoma Citizen. You can read full coverage of the heated conversation, and the official response by Warpaint owners, over at the previously posted link (see first paragraph).

When confronting Travis, James wants to know, "What does the shirt mean?" This is a reasonable question for any fair-minded individual to ask about a piece of art that confuses them. However, this guy launches immediately into how he is "Fucking Offended" before he is really even sure what the shirt means. However, Derek and Travis did tell him what it meant. They said, "We're just honoring our native american heritage."

Okay, this should be the end of the whole heated debate. If you don't understand something (a piece of art, a written work, etc.) and you ask the creator what it means and they TELL YOU, why would you assign an alternative and opposing meaning?? Instead of taking them at their word (their word deemed not good enough) James assumes that they either ignorant, purposefully exploitative, and/or racist. Now James is being contrary. He had a conclusion in mind before he even set foot in Warpaint and he forced the data to agree with said conclusion. This is illogical.

In the post (and in the store) James starts talking about genocide - which is a pretty heavy word to toss around when you're not really sure what the shirt meant in the first place. He posts statistics about abuses towards Native Americans, which eventually devolves into a blindly circular argument. The meaning of the shirt is in the artist's intent. If the artist intended it to be honorific, that's the meaning of the shirt. End of story.

Now, I've read enough aesthetic philosophy to know that art is ultimately subjective. If James wants to believe that this shirt is offensive, that's his subjective opinion. Does he really need to blog about his disagreement on the internet in order to distort facts? No.

I have Native American blood, like most people with family history rooted in Oklahoma. I don't find this shirt offensive, not because my perception is colored by my patronage of Warpaint, but because I can see how it's really just some bad ass symbolism at play. But, I don't even need to tell you that I have Native American blood in order NOT to be offended by this shirt. I'm a human being, a lover of art, and an appreciator of culture - and still I am not offended. Here's why: If you know anything about Native American culture, you'd know that Native Americans do not fear death. They see it as a natural part of the life cycle. In many ways, they celebrated death - not in some morbid mall goth kind of way - but in a way that honored their deep spiritual connection to life and its natural end. If Derek and Travis intended this shirt to honor their Native American heritage, I think that's a pretty legit reason for making and selling this shirt. Don't you?

If James says "what is the meaning of this shirt?" and Derek & Travis say that they made it to "honor their Native American heritage," shouldn't the issue be at rest?

In further defense of Derek and Travis, I'll say this: LIVE on the Plaza is a BFD for store owners. There is a lot of preparation that goes into the event (especially since Warpaint was also hosting a burlesque show that night). I was told by another Plaza District store owner that last week's LIVE event was the busiest they'd ever been because of Allioppe's Shoppe Crawl which persuaded many new patrons of the Plaza District to visit its retail stores. From this, I gather that this was a big night for Warpaint, in more ways than one. Take the pressure of a major event, two overworked owners, a store crawling with customers, and one angry blogger and you have a recipe for a fight. I think James knows that he could have handled this better and that a fruitful dialogue could have come out of this situation, but instead if got pretty ugly. It's kind of low to get riled up in an owner's place of business during one of the busiest nights of their year.

Final point: I am going to be facetious and point out how James did not capitalize the term "Native American" several times in his post and comments. That is an act that could be deemed offensive by many Native Americans as it denigrates the term. The only reason I am pointing this out is to illustrate the fact that you can be offended by just about anything, if you're actively looking for ways to be offended.