Book of Mormon Stories

[TripletDaddy]

I have never heard of the two fingers behind the head thing. We do an arm motion to indicate coming from across the sea.

We also do the arm folding at the end:

Given this land (extend right arm)
If they live (extend left arm)
Righ (fold right arm over left)
teous (fold left arm over right)
ly! (bow or nod head once).

In hindsight, these actions may not be appropriate. In lieu of the arm motions, we are going to ask our kids to hang out on the porch, drink, and buy new pickup trucks every year.

[ERCougar]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Maybe it is as offensive to Nat. Am. and makin slanted eyes is to Asian-Am.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I do see a difference between accentuating a physical feature in an attempt to mock and using fingers as a sort of prop with no attempt at mocking. But again, if anyone has an example of a Native American complaining about it, I'm all for changing things.

[creekster]

My wife's native culture (not native american) uses feathers in headbands and she is not offended by the motions, AFAIK, but if I remember I iwll ask her tonight.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by creekster

My wife's native culture (not native american) uses feathers in headbands and she is not offended by the motions, AFAIK, but if I remember I iwll ask her tonight.

Is burlesque a culture? I'm all for it.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

Is burlesque a culture? I'm all for it.

Now that's offensive. We're done.

[cougjunkie]

I think this thread is ridiculous, I put two fingers behind my head proudly, my wife is Indian and she has no problem with it. We are nursery leaders and we sing this song every single week, the kids love it, they are learning a lot and its ridiculous to think that it is racist.

How many of you when you were younger would run around with two fingers behind your head and patting your mouth while screaming pretending to be indians? We all did it, so that makes all of you racist.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by cougjunkie

I think this thread is ridiculous, I put two fingers behind my head proudly, my wife is Indian and she has no problem with it. We are nursery leaders and we sing this song every single week, the kids love it, they are learning a lot and its ridiculous to think that it is racist.

How many of you when you were younger would run around with two fingers behind your head and patting your mouth while screaming pretending to be indians? We all did it, so that makes all of you racist.

Whites don't understand racism. All they know is that they have been the major perpetrator of racism throughout history and so anything they do or say that has any element involving people of other races is racism in some shape or form.

Let's just take the blanket mea culpa and stick to singing "Give, Said the Little Stream" since as far as I know, there hasn't been a groundswell of sympathy for the continued anthropomorphic oppression in our society; so we can milk that song for all its worth for another 50 to 100 years before public awareness catches up.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Whites don't understand racism. All they know is that they have been the major perpetrator of racism throughout history and so anything they do or say that has any element involving people of other races is racism in some shape or form.

Let's just take the blanket mea culpa and stick to singing "Give, Said the Little Stream" since as far as I know, there hasn't been a groundswell of sympathy for the continued anthropomorphic oppression in our society; so we can milk that song for all its worth for another 50 to 100 years before public awareness catches up.

We never sing "give said the little stream" in our ward anymore. Somethign about it not being christ centered, i think.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by creekster

We never sing "give said the little stream" in our ward anymore. Somethign about it not being christ centered, i think.

In the old Spanish hymn book, there was this song called "Lavemonos los dientes," which, roughly translated, means "We Should Brush our Teeth."

I cannot remember the lyrics entirely, but they went something like this (translated from Spanish to English):

"I will not brush my teeth," a small child exclaimed
"I already combed my hair and washed my face...That's enough is for me!"

The germs in his mouth heard this
And fearlessly came out to have a party.

That song was rad. It frustrated the mission president, though, because we would often pick that song to sing in meetings or gatherings....the person conducting would ask someone to pick a hymn. Since Lavemonos Los Dientes was in the hymn book, it was fair game.

Towards the end of my mission, President banned Lavemonos Los Dientes.

[MikeWaters]

We sang "If you could hie to Kolob" an awful lot on my mission. You have got to get it in when you can, because it is not going to be on the main play-list when you get back home.