"As a self-identified Cherokee, I have understood since I was seven years old that America’s indigenous population has survived and is still here. Still, our educational system largely fails to recognize the decimation of Native American peoples that occurred for centuries, and the consequences of that failure are evident here at UT-Austin.

Consider photos from Texas Tribe, a student service organization on campus. Photos on the group’s website posted in September showed group members wearing war paint on their faces, feathers in their hair and costumes vaguely resembling traditional Native American garb, mugging for the camera and making the “how” hand signal, a stereotypical representation of a Native American greeting.

This is in line with the group’s overall Native American theme. The group’s logo is in the shape of a teepee, and the name is in a font that implies that Native Americans wrote exclusively on wood bark. The very name Texas Tribe, while not necessarily offensive in itself, helps bind all of the other caricatures together."

Get the Story:
Travis Knoll: Native American culture and unknowing disrespect (The Daily Texan 10/23)