Lethbridge high school grads criticized for Cowboys and Indians costume party
Before venturing out into the world and becoming adults, students from Chinook High School in Lethbridge, Alta., had a party over the May long weekend, where they toasted to their successful completion of Grade 12.
The theme of the costume party was Cowboys and Indians and that prompted objections on social media after photos and video of the event were posted online.
Tieja Medicine Crane, a Grade 12 student at a different high school in the city, said she felt offended when she saw the posts online.
"The story behind the headdress is that every feather means something. It was an act of bravery. You earned all those feathers in order to make the headdress," Medicine Crane said.
"I will never be able to wear a headdress because I haven't earned it
So someone else, not from my culture, is going to wear it? That's really offensive."
In addition to costumes of feathers and headdresses, many at the party wore imitation war paint and hollered stereotypical chants by the bonfire.
In response to Medicine Crane's objections on social media, many students who attended the party tried to defend it, while also criticizing her. One student wrote: "It's a stupid thing to get mad about."
"If they're allowed to use all of the things white people use, why can't we do this? It's like saying no one can use electricity or something because white people invented it," one poster said.