Why would a 100+-year-old youth organization finally decide to address and end its long history of Native cultural appropriation?

Because young people asked them to.

For more than a century, national youth development organization Camp Fire (formerly known as Camp Fire Girls or Camp Fire USA) incorporated traditions, images, names, music, songs, clothing, and activities that were fabricated to sound Native American—while, simultaneously, Native youth were being sent to boarding schools and stripped of their culture and heritage. They were forced to assimilate and wear Western clothing, and they were punished, often physically, for speaking their Native languages.

Camp Fire’s history is reflective of the broader camping, scouting, and youth development sectors that have a long history of Native cultural appropriation. In the past decade, however, the young people involved in Camp Fire’s programming began to voice that wearing Native-looking ceremonial gowns and beads felt weird and wrong. They expressed that some of the camp’s practices—like choosing their own Native-sounding name or singing certain songs and chants—didn’t sit right with them, especially coming from a self-proclaimed inclusive organization. Thus, prompted by ongoing requests from youth in its programs across the United States, Camp Fire leadership began to thoroughly examine its history of cultural appropriation.

At its root, Native cultural appropriation comes down to power. It happens in two different ways: first, when members of a dominant culture take and use elements from a culture of people that has been systemically oppressed by that same dominant group (like Camp Fire and its use of Native culture); and second, when the dominant culture normalizes taking things from other people groups—especially those that are marginalized—and using them for their own amusement, fascination, or benefit, without permission or respect. There are numerous examples of this across American culture and throughout history—think music, mascots, hairstyles, jewelry, designs, and more.

Past harm cannot be undone, but it is possible to acknowledge it and attempt to repair the ongoing damage of Native cultural appropriation—and it’s important to note that meaningfully addressing the harm done requires engaging in dialogue with the very people who have been harmed.

Read the full article about Native cultural appropriation by Shawna Rosenzweig, Rusty Creed Brown, and Casie Wise at Stanford Social Innovation Review.