Taking McDonald's to the Woodshed

By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji)
© 2009 Native Sun News

June 28, 2009

When my Native (SD) Sun News broke the story about the Custer figurine astride a motorcycle, packed into a McDonald's Happy Meal, most Native Americans, particularly the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho, were not happy.

An extremely weak and calculated response from McDonald's came to the newspaper in short order. It read: "At McDonald's we value and respect people of all ethnicities, as well as their cultural history. The Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Happy Meal features eight toys portraying different characters from the film. As with all Happy Meal promotions, our goal is to provide families a positive experience that can be shared by all." Say what? A positive experience? Who are they trying to kid? The response was signed by Danya Proud, Spokesperson for McDonald's USA.

We would suggest that McDonald's do a little more research into the history of the characters they feature in their Happy Meals. It is apparent by this historical gaff that someone at McDonald's either didn't know about the relationship between Custer and the Indians or was too stupid to recognize it.

For the record, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, gained notoriety as an "Indian killer" while commanding the U. S. Seventh Cavalry. It didn't matter to him if the intended victims were men, women or children. Too him they were just "Indians" and by killing as many of them as he could, his aim for a high political office would be greatly enhanced.

This is a historical fact that the researchers at McDonald's failed to see, or worse yet, failed to grasp. Apparently the propaganda spread by Hollywood and by books was quite effective in making a killer into a man to be loved and admired.

Suppose the Night at the Museum had featured a character in the movie named Adolph Hitler. Do you think McDonald's would have welcomed a figurine of him into their Happy Meals? No? Why not? The Jewish people would have come after them with hammers and tongs.

For those who do not know or understand history from an Indian perspective, Custer was the Hitler of the Plains. His cavalry murdered, pillaged and raped their way across Indian country in the late 1800s while he sat in the saddle and orchestrated the entire scene. His troopers made coin purses from the scrotums of Indian men and ornaments for their saddle horns out of the vaginas of Indian women. It doesn't get more grotesque than that.

If the dimwitted historians at McDonald's consider this murderer to be some kind of hero, it is
indicative of a corporate mentality that needs a serious revamping.

But let us not stop there with McDonald's. Rick Williams, the CEO of the American Indian College Fund, has been trying for years to get McDonald's to include Native Americans in the scholarship program that funds Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians. Not only do the high muckety mucks at McDonald's refuse to fund Indian scholarships, they even refuse to respond to the phone calls and written requests of Mr. Williams.

Why aren't Native Americans included in the scholarship program? According to McDonald's hierarchy, there are no Indians that hold franchises for McDonald's restaurants. Now whose fault is that? Can they sit there with a straight face and tell me that no Native American has ever applied for a McDonald's franchise?

In Rapid City, South Dakota one of the most popular stops for the folks from the Indian reservations is McDonald's. Maybe the Indian schools should stop bringing their students to McDonald's by the bus load, and maybe the Indian parents should think twice before doing the same thing. Since Native Americans make up nearly 25 percent of the population West of the Missouri River in South Dakota, that could present a problem.

After the Native Sun News attempted to get comments from McDonald's corporate executives for the breaking story, suddenly all of the Custer dolls were pulled from the Happy Meals in Rapid City. The same thing happened in some communities in Oklahoma and New Mexico, states with large Indian populations. Surely someone at McDonald's was taken aback by this outrageous faux paux and ordered the removal of the offending figurines.

Last week, June 25, was a legal holiday on the Indian reservations in South Dakota. It is a holiday because that is the day the combined forces of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho, demolished Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn. The descendants of those warriors that fought and won this great victory over the United States Cavalry consider June 25 a day of celebration because the much hated Custer was sent to his Maker on that day.

It is ironic that as the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho celebrated this special holiday, figurines of the murderer they despised were still being packed into the McDonald's Happy Meals for the children of America to enjoy.

(Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the publisher of Native Sun News. He was the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association, the 1985 recipient of the H. L. Mencken Award, and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1991. He can be reached at [e-mail])

Comments

[seatech1]

Tim, I respect you and what you are saying. I have a question for you, because I want to understand your perspective, so please accept it that way.
Would a figurine of a famous Native American be disrespectful? For example, if a company offered small figures of famous Native American leaders, would that be an insult or would it show respect?
I realize that you don't want to be considered mascots, and I don't mean it that way. I realize that context means something, but perception is subjective. So one person might display the figurine as honoring the individuals, while others may play "cowboys and indians" with it. So is the offering of the figurine in a kid's meal an insult, or is the use of it once it is received the insult?
Again, please don't read anything into my question other than a desire to understand.
Thanks.

[Harrier]

You know, its interesting: Fast food companies serve the most unhealthy food on this planet. It's so unhealthy medical doctors say continued consumption will literally kill you before 6 months are up. Yet instead of forcing companies to provide reasonably healthy food, the people being victimized are complaining about characters shown outside the package. If I were a fast food chain, that is not a bad problem to have. So let's see if I got it right, you are willing to go head a ingest all the corn syrup, preservatives and unhealthy food you can and pack on the pounds that are designed to kill you and all you care about is the writing on the package. Perhaps some should should seeing a movie called fast food nation. I for one, cut out McDonalds and all fast foods (or rarely) from High School on. Best decision I ever made.

[danaseilhan]

It's actually possible to eat healthy at a fast-food restaurant, but you have to avoid most of the menu. So yes, that was my first thought too. Lack of the type of nutritious food to which Lakota had access pre-Contact is one of the reasons they're dropping like flies from diabetes and heart disease now. That should have been the impetus for boycott, not the stupid toys, which smell like plastic fumes and break in a month anyway. BUT. This Custer thing is a pretty serious faux pas. And McDonald's in particular has been insensitive to gender and racial issues for a long time now. Hell, they're still telling people that that old lady who sued them over hot coffee was just careless, even though she suffered third-degree burns from spilling the coffee. (Would you want third-degree burns down your throat?) And the public eats it up along with their so-called "food."

I want, though, to see greater attention paid to the fact that American Indians can't afford to eat healthy and that of the government commodities they get, almost NONE of them are suited to Native metabolism. Which is not altogether different from white people's dietary needs, but Indians have had even less time to adjust to the crap we eat, from an evolutionary perspective. We need to help them restore the bison herds, among other things, and we need to restore the lands to them that we illegally keep from them.

[redbow40]

I will be boycotting them also. This really pisses me off! Of all the lame crap and complaining we hear from politicians. This is real and very serious! McDonalds will receive a letter from me this week!

[SamSeven]

One more reason to boycott MacDonalds.

[JohnKelly]

Yet another reason to boycott the purveyors of commercial food garbage to consumers. Thanks for your post. Some will reject all comparisons to Hitler. This one is right on.

John

[LeftRight]

Many may reject the comparisons to Hitler, but it's still a valid point. The only real differences between Hitler and Custer are differences of scale....

[danaseilhan]

Yep, scale and technology. You better believe that if we'd had Xyklon-B showers back in the 1800s, the federal government would have been using them and most of us would have turned a blind eye as to why all the Indians were disappearing.

And we go funding Israel's "homeland." What about restoring Native homeland? What about a real apology and real reparations paid?