6 ms·

Who Speaks for Crazy Horse? (2019)

21 points by samclemens 5y ago

CA0DA 5y ago
> Though the federal government twice offered Korczak Ziolkowski millions of dollars to fund the memorial, he decided to rely on private donations, and retained control of the project This article contains a lot of opining about a private memorial. If you don't like it, simply don't pay to attend it and build your own. If yours is better and more historically accurate (claims made in the article say the current has certain inaccuracies), yours will become more popular!
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  You don't see an issue with non-Indians making millions off the memory of Sitting Bull miles away from a reservation that is one of the poorest areas in America?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - prawn 5y ago
    Someone replied and then deleted a comment suggesting it was a money-losing project given the decades spent without completing it. My impression was that someone might have an interest in perpetuating the "donations towards completion" thing. If someone takes in more than they spend on family slowly carving away, it can be "successful" for decades, right? Turning down millions from the government might suggest the donations were lucrative. "In 2018, the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation brought in $US12.5 million in admission and donations." A completed, privately-owned ticket-selling attraction in the hands of non-Indians would be less appealing than a project with donations to supposedly honour someone.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      The article mentions that the charity raised $12.5 million a year with $77 million in assets, in addition to the Korczak’s Heritage, Inc that runs the gift shop, food, and bussing. edit edited that in I see. >A completed, privately-owned ticket-selling attraction in the hands of non-Indians would be less appealing than a project with donations to supposedly honour someone They also use the creation as an attraction. When you see Mount Rushmore, you are left with a desire to see something like that being made. Crazy Horse offers you that chance by selling tickets to when explosions happen.
- vgel 5y ago
  There's only one set of Lakota sacred mountains. I don't think the situation would be improved by having 100 sets of wackos blowing up the mountain instead of one.
hirundo 5y ago
The "early design" sculpture is so much better than the actual one, particularly around the eyes. This is why I love being a coder. I make blunders like that between design and implementation all the time, but my mistakes aren't set in stone, and I don't need to find a new mountain to fix them.
eplanit 5y ago
It's tiresome. You can't use the image of a Native American as a symbol of strength and bravery as was done by sports teams and clubs -- despite the explicit intention of honor, it's cast as an insult (the Washington Redskins was an outlier and the antithesis of this -- good riddance to them and their ridiculous logo). A man builds a monument to a famous Native American, and his stated intent is to honor and somehow try and compensate for the wrongs done to them. Naaah, he's bad, too. When I went to summer camp as a kid, the cabins were divided in two (how they were constructed), with one side being the Comanches, and the other side the Apaches. The idea was strength and bravery (as practically all such references were). Never ever was any of that about denigrating or insulting a group. Do people want their mascot to be a symbol of someone they hate or belittle? Of course not. Anyway, I'm sure that's all gone now, too. Fine. I guess we should topple all the monuments built for the Indians along with all the other statues of 18th and 19th century Americans. Let's think of the Indians only as victims (there is no pride in victim-hood, and it implies weakness); or, maybe keep them so that people might be able to gain some insight into history.
- apocalypstyx 5y ago
  > It's tiresome. You can't use the image of a Native American as a symbol of strength and bravery as was done by sports teams and clubs -- despite the explicit intention of honor The thing I keep thinking about, in regards to this subject, is there seems an implicit backhandedness even in the case of honor. It could be argued we do the same with animals, take the image of the powerful thing that could kill us, and totemize it. However, the two things implicit here are that we respect it because we fear it and, conversely, we honor it after we have beaten it (and perhaps especially because we have beaten it); we honor the spirit of the wolf by dancing around a fire with the hide of one turned into a headdress.
  - cherrycherry98 5y ago
    Is this not reading too much into it? How many sports teams in the US use Vikings, Spartans, or Trojans as mascots? To my knowledge "we" (whoever that is supposed to mean) never defeated these people. They are generally associated by the public as having been fierce warriors.
prawn 5y ago
Visited a few years back. Got the impression that it was a bit of a tourist trap with little incentive to ever be completed (easier for them to get donations towards slowly working on it). Regretted going there.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  Well, it is the largest non-publicly funded project of its type in history. However, I think Crazy Horse would have hated the idea of blowing up a mountain bit by bit to look like him.
- JohnClark1337 5y ago
  Yeah, I remember my parents taking me there 20 years ago. Looking at new pictures of the monument I don't think anything has changed. Makes me wonder how long it would actually take to complete if they brought in a bunch of workers and really dug in. They'd probably have to close the site down to tourists for a while though, which would be unacceptable to their wallet.
cuakknife 5y ago
I see a lot of people saying "indian" and "non-indian" in this thread. As someone with native american heritage (but not from the USA) I always cringe when I see these terms. Calling native americans "Indian" was a missunderstanding that, for some reason, europeans didn't care enough to rectify for centuries. Next time you're using it, please think about this and go for native american instead :D (or something equivalent!)
- luigibosco 5y ago
  'native american' has always seemed off to me given that native people may or may not identify as "american" and america was thrust upon them. When referring to a group i generally use tribal name, "native", indigenous or "native people in america" (when needing to refer to a general world location)
- wnscooke 5y ago
  The best would be to learn the nation’s name. And then use that. In English I guess; in their own tongue would be cool. It’s like if I want to talk about Germany, or Luxembourg, but only and always use the term European. But because most (?) know there are actual specific nations in Europe, we use those names. Sadly, that knowledge is still lacking in North America amongst the non-First Nations peoples.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  From the various "natives" I've talked to, calling them "Americans" is roughly as offensive as calling them "Indians." It's giving them the name of their conquerors. I personally like Canada's term "First Nations," but I'm aware that US tribes have not opted for that name either. I tend to use the term others are using, in this case I was thinking of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, unless it's obviously being used derogatorily. I probably should have said non-native though.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  here in South Dakota at least, much of the native population identifies with the term "indian" or "American Indian." as an example: they have a BLM-esque organization that seems to be gaining support called the "N.D.N. Collective." I always thought it was weird growing up

21 points by samclemens 5y ago

> Though the federal government twice offered Korczak Ziolkowski millions of dollars to fund the memorial, he decided to rely on private donations, and retained control of the project This article contains a lot of opining about a private memorial. If you don't like it, simply don't pay to attend it and build your own. If yours is better and more historically accurate (claims made in the article say the current has certain inaccuracies), yours will become more popular!

boomboomsubban 5y ago
You don't see an issue with non-Indians making millions off the memory of Sitting Bull miles away from a reservation that is one of the poorest areas in America?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- prawn 5y ago
  Someone replied and then deleted a comment suggesting it was a money-losing project given the decades spent without completing it. My impression was that someone might have an interest in perpetuating the "donations towards completion" thing. If someone takes in more than they spend on family slowly carving away, it can be "successful" for decades, right? Turning down millions from the government might suggest the donations were lucrative. "In 2018, the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation brought in $US12.5 million in admission and donations." A completed, privately-owned ticket-selling attraction in the hands of non-Indians would be less appealing than a project with donations to supposedly honour someone.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    The article mentions that the charity raised $12.5 million a year with $77 million in assets, in addition to the Korczak’s Heritage, Inc that runs the gift shop, food, and bussing. edit edited that in I see. >A completed, privately-owned ticket-selling attraction in the hands of non-Indians would be less appealing than a project with donations to supposedly honour someone They also use the creation as an attraction. When you see Mount Rushmore, you are left with a desire to see something like that being made. Crazy Horse offers you that chance by selling tickets to when explosions happen.
vgel 5y ago
There's only one set of Lakota sacred mountains. I don't think the situation would be improved by having 100 sets of wackos blowing up the mountain instead of one.

hirundo 5y ago

The "early design" sculpture is so much better than the actual one, particularly around the eyes. This is why I love being a coder. I make blunders like that between design and implementation all the time, but my mistakes aren't set in stone, and I don't need to find a new mountain to fix them.

eplanit 5y ago

It's tiresome. You can't use the image of a Native American as a symbol of strength and bravery as was done by sports teams and clubs -- despite the explicit intention of honor, it's cast as an insult (the Washington Redskins was an outlier and the antithesis of this -- good riddance to them and their ridiculous logo). A man builds a monument to a famous Native American, and his stated intent is to honor and somehow try and compensate for the wrongs done to them. Naaah, he's bad, too. When I went to summer camp as a kid, the cabins were divided in two (how they were constructed), with one side being the Comanches, and the other side the Apaches. The idea was strength and bravery (as practically all such references were). Never ever was any of that about denigrating or insulting a group. Do people want their mascot to be a symbol of someone they hate or belittle? Of course not. Anyway, I'm sure that's all gone now, too. Fine. I guess we should topple all the monuments built for the Indians along with all the other statues of 18th and 19th century Americans. Let's think of the Indians only as victims (there is no pride in victim-hood, and it implies weakness); or, maybe keep them so that people might be able to gain some insight into history.

apocalypstyx 5y ago
> It's tiresome. You can't use the image of a Native American as a symbol of strength and bravery as was done by sports teams and clubs -- despite the explicit intention of honor The thing I keep thinking about, in regards to this subject, is there seems an implicit backhandedness even in the case of honor. It could be argued we do the same with animals, take the image of the powerful thing that could kill us, and totemize it. However, the two things implicit here are that we respect it because we fear it and, conversely, we honor it after we have beaten it (and perhaps especially because we have beaten it); we honor the spirit of the wolf by dancing around a fire with the hide of one turned into a headdress.
- cherrycherry98 5y ago
  Is this not reading too much into it? How many sports teams in the US use Vikings, Spartans, or Trojans as mascots? To my knowledge "we" (whoever that is supposed to mean) never defeated these people. They are generally associated by the public as having been fierce warriors.

prawn 5y ago

Visited a few years back. Got the impression that it was a bit of a tourist trap with little incentive to ever be completed (easier for them to get donations towards slowly working on it). Regretted going there.

BizarroLand 5y ago
Well, it is the largest non-publicly funded project of its type in history. However, I think Crazy Horse would have hated the idea of blowing up a mountain bit by bit to look like him.
JohnClark1337 5y ago
Yeah, I remember my parents taking me there 20 years ago. Looking at new pictures of the monument I don't think anything has changed. Makes me wonder how long it would actually take to complete if they brought in a bunch of workers and really dug in. They'd probably have to close the site down to tourists for a while though, which would be unacceptable to their wallet.

cuakknife 5y ago

I see a lot of people saying "indian" and "non-indian" in this thread. As someone with native american heritage (but not from the USA) I always cringe when I see these terms. Calling native americans "Indian" was a missunderstanding that, for some reason, europeans didn't care enough to rectify for centuries. Next time you're using it, please think about this and go for native american instead :D (or something equivalent!)

luigibosco 5y ago
'native american' has always seemed off to me given that native people may or may not identify as "american" and america was thrust upon them. When referring to a group i generally use tribal name, "native", indigenous or "native people in america" (when needing to refer to a general world location)
wnscooke 5y ago
The best would be to learn the nation’s name. And then use that. In English I guess; in their own tongue would be cool. It’s like if I want to talk about Germany, or Luxembourg, but only and always use the term European. But because most (?) know there are actual specific nations in Europe, we use those names. Sadly, that knowledge is still lacking in North America amongst the non-First Nations peoples.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
From the various "natives" I've talked to, calling them "Americans" is roughly as offensive as calling them "Indians." It's giving them the name of their conquerors. I personally like Canada's term "First Nations," but I'm aware that US tribes have not opted for that name either. I tend to use the term others are using, in this case I was thinking of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, unless it's obviously being used derogatorily. I probably should have said non-native though.
adamrezich 5y ago
here in South Dakota at least, much of the native population identifies with the term "indian" or "American Indian." as an example: they have a BLM-esque organization that seems to be gaining support called the "N.D.N. Collective." I always thought it was weird growing up