#yourindioisracist

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Didymos Call to Action Follow-Up

On October 18, 2016; a call to action, regarding the baby carrier manufacturer Didymos, was posted in the Facebook Group CCBW Reviews. This post is a follow-up to the counterarguments that have come to light since the initiation of the call to action and subsequent statement from Didymos.

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With the results of the recent US Presidential election, it's been challenging to direct energy back to the Didymos call to action. Not because I think the original call to action is less important, but because my heart was heavy and I'm still processing myriad emotions regarding who people in this country elected to our highest office. There are some things I do want to try and address, though.

“You’re all so cruel and insensitive for pursuing this while Anna and Tina Hoffmann are still grieving the loss of their mother, Erika.” I personally don't know what that grief is like, however I do know that my mother still grieves for her own mother years later. I don't know if that grief ever heals, and if it doesn't - then there would never have been a good time to address these issues. "Why bring this up when Erika isn't here to defend herself?" My only response to that is those of us vocally raising these issues now are currently organized. By that I mean we share space with each other, discuss numerous issues that concern us, and as a result have acted upon those concerns. I cannot speak for others who have come before us in the babywearing community.

“You need to prove that Erika was aware of these concerns before she passed.” What would proof even look like? An email sent by a concerned consumer that never received a reply? Because the two Australian retailers who severed ties before this call to action never received a response. Honestly, the concepts of social justice are proving challenging for many Europeans to grasp right now. I'm not sure Erika would have understood herself if such an email made it to her.

I also want to point out that I have not said Erika *intentionally* used a racial slur on an appropriated design. I don't think she knew it was a slur, and I said as much in the blog post here: http://introvert-adelita.tumblr.com/post/152616756468/the-racist-and-appropriative-nature-of-didymos

I do have proof, though, that Tina Hoffmann has been aware of these issues since July and has not acted on them, except to affirm positions made by her US/Canadian and Mexican distributors that defend the word "Indio". "But Tina tried to meet with someone at IBC and they cancelled!" No. Tina tried to arrange a meeting with me via TWO intermediaries days before IBC- an event I was not attending. Further, no one who was active in the #takebacktherebozo conversations attended IBC. You cannot cancel a meeting that was never even scheduled.

“But you canceled a Skype meeting with Tina!” Again, you can’t cancel something that was never scheduled.

"No culture owns diamond shapes!" And “They changed the name! Why isn’t that enough for you?!” And we never proclaimed any one culture did [own diamond shapes]. It was always the totality of the designs, the assertion by Didymos as to the source of "inspiration", and the name of their flagship design that brought this into question. And after 40 years, you cannot wave a magic wand and say "we didn't mean to say it was inspired by Native Americans/Latin America/Central America/Mexico," and expect everything to be okay. It doesn't work that way. You can’t re-write history because you don’t like what it says about you.

“But that rebozo in the side-by-side was manufactured just to take down Didymos.” If any of us had the capacity to produce a rebozo like that, we wouldn’t need to “take down Didymos”. The artistry and craftsmanship of that piece, which was made in Oaxaca, speaks for itself. Any claims that I or someone related to these efforts purposefully manufactured a rebozo to look like a Didymos Ind*o are derailments from the issues being raised. Also, when we first released the side-by-side for this call to action, people were clamoring that the two looked nothing alike. You can’t have it both ways folx. And - again - the point was not to “take down Didymos.” This effort was to push them to step up and stop manufacturing the lines that are appropriative and derogatory.

“Why are you targeting Didymos?” The members of CCBW Reviews have been calling in manufacturers for over a year now. You may not have noticed, but work has been going on to foster a babywearing community that is TRULY inclusive as opposed to just paying lip service to that idea. Many brands have been critiqued, and called in to act upon those critiques. This may be the first time YOU have taken notice of this work being done, but that doesn’t mean the work hasn’t been happening. Didymos was not “targeted”. We just reached our tipping point with them.

“Indio is not even a racial slur. A town in California, a beer, and Robert Downey Jr.’s son are all named ‘Indio’.” I could quote from books I have or link to passages online that explain the derogatory nature of the term. But I’m not going to do that. I stand firm that the testimonies offered here and in other spaces as to the derogatory nature of the word speak for themselves. I will not diminish or detract from those who stood up and said “Yes. It is a derogatory term and here is my story.”  “Indio” is a racial slur, and we shouldn’t allow for the perpetuation of racism, appropriation, and colonization if we have the capacity to change things. We probably can’t get Indio, California to change their name, however we did have the capacity to call in Didymos. I would also like to point out that after their initial statement on this call to action, Didymos agreed that the word can be offensive and inappropriate ( https://www.facebook.com/Didymos.Baby/posts/1345495842151798 ). Yet, their initial self-victimization in their original post has caused many people and groups to cling to the notion that it is not a slur. Further, their refusal to distance themselves from groups clinging to this notion calls into question any authenticity Didymos may have regarding the renaming.

“This is all some elaborate ploy to gain market share for a competitor to Didymos.” Wrong. Again - this is just another derailment to detract from the original issues. I will speak for myself here and say that I am probably one of the most unaffiliated people you will find. Sure. I have my favorite brands. But I’ve purchased (brand new or second hand) EVERY carrier I own and have never been tester for anyone. The only thing I have taken from any manufacturer was payment for consulting on a piece done regarding the #takebacktherebozo campaign. This call to action is not a conspiracy.

“Why don’t you spend your time going after bigger companies and leave babywearing companies alone?” Who ever said we don’t file complaints with other companies or industries? Further, the nascent nature of babywearing as an industry is fertile ground for establishing that industries and companies can demonstrate widespread respect for marginalized cultures and peoples AND be successful enterprises. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive. Anyone advocating that they are needs to evaluate their own moral compass.

So where do we go from here? We (myself and the community of Latinx babywearers driving this effort) don't know. Didymos badly handled their initial statement of the issue. I said before, they can come out the other side of this and continue making woven wraps for another 40+ years without perpetuating appropriation, colonization, and racism. I believe that to still be true. I believe retiring the appropriated designs is still the just course here. I believe Didymos should honor their role of industry makers and lead the industry in a direction that respects the cultural intellectual property of peoples and cultures around the world.

Didymos mainstreamed babywearing for many people who lost touch with it. Well, now they should mainstream respect for the indigenous peoples who kept the practice alive.

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Guest Post: Leaving the Indio Behind

A known and admitted wrap-hoarder, I have owned probably thirty-ish wraps and I have sold... two. I love to lend them out and not see those wraps for months while some one else is enjoying them. I have given over a dozen away. I did sell one for double what my first car cost me because I could not justify that amount of money for a carrier, but this is the story of the other wrap. The only other wrap I have ever actually sold -- "the Indio."

My first wrap was a black and white and had a beautiful pattern. I bought it from another local mom who had bought it as a dye blank. When I saw it, she told me it was a “didy.” Didymos was literally one of the ONLY words I knew about wraps. Even though I had worn my older child in his ergo for over four years at that point, I had never heard of woven wraps. When my newborn decided she was going to weigh fifteen pounds at 8 weeks, her stretchy wrap was no longer cutting it.  My local BWI group let me try some woven wraps at a meeting and the only thing I remember coming out of that meeting was, “all cotton Didymos in size 6 would be a great first wrap.”  And here I was, at a swap with a local mom…

Me: Is this one of those non-stretchy wraps?

Her: Yeah, It’s a woven wrap. It’s a Didy, ‘Old Standard.’

Me: (*Didy, check) Oh. Is there a new standard?

Her: No, that’s the name of it. I had bought it as a dye blank, but am deciding to sell it.

Me: Is it all cotton?

Her: Yes.

Me: (*Cotton, check) Is it a Size 6?

Her: Yes.

Me: (*6, check!) I’ll take it!

Her: It’s $120, you can paypal me.

Me: Ok.  What’s paypal?

If you are laughing at how naive I sound in that above conversation, that is ok. I was. But I had my first woven wrap and it was LURVE!!  You could not wipe the grin off my face for those first few weeks. I have never before experienced such a euphoric high from a product. I adored my Didy black and white, ‘Old Standard.’

And everything was right in the world.

Until that day at Costco. I still remember the face of the woman who came up to me, but I never learned her name. Like I had grown accustomed to, she complimented me on cute baby and my wrap and then very nonchalantly said, “my first wrap was an Indio.” “This is a Didy,” I corrected her, “Old Standard.” Then the bomb dropped, “but the pattern.  The pattern is called Indio. It’s a Didy Indio. A very pretty one.” At that moment I felt like some one had sucked all the air out of the room. I don’t remember the rest of that conversation, but I do remember googling, “Didymos Indio,” in the Costco bathroom with my sleeping baby in my beloved wrap.

What. The. Hell.

If I had to pick a single word from my childhood that meant ugly, uncivilized, unkempt, savage, or wrong, it was the word, “Indio.” Suddenly I had flashbacks to third-grade Cynthia who was trying on dance shoes and her dance teacher said loudly and to the class, “Si tienes pata de Indio, estos zapatos no te van a quedar y podemos ordenar otros.” (If you have Indio paws for feet, these [fine] shoes won’t fit you, but we have others we can order.) I have never squished my foot into shoes so tight and so uncomfortable in my life. I didn’t want to have, “Indio feet.” A few weeks later I quit Folkorico dance after five years. It was my first love, but the shear thought of having to admit that the shoes didn’t fit me correctly was enough for me to give it up.

You see, even as a young child, I knew what the word Indio meant. It was why I spent almost every night in second grade asleep with those pink sponge rollers in my head. It was the only way that my hair would curl (it was the eighties, y’all). I desperately wanted Cindy Brady pigtails and my long, dark (very very very) straight hair only had one name, “pelo de Indio.”

Was the church particularly full today? The priest would say, “hasta los indios han bajado de las lomas.” (Even the savages have come down from the hills.) You see, church is something civilized people attend, when it was particularly full, it’s not that there were suddenly more civilized people (they’ve always come to church), it’s that the Indios have come to their senses and decided to join us.

When you don’t put make up on?  Cara de Indio. (Indio face) If you spend too much time in the sun (getting darker)? Color Indio (Indio color) Don’t use your table manners? Comer como Indio (Eating like an Indio) Being loud and boisterous? Portandote Indio (Act like an Indio)

Even when I started babywearing in 2009, a response I heard from my family quite a bit was, “como la India Maria.” (Like the Indio, Maria.) It was not a compliment.

Imagine my shock as I learned that this thing I was wrapping my baby in was named after all those put downs and insecurities I had growing up as a child. But the derogatory nature of the word predates this child, me, my mother, her mother and even her mother. The word has had a long history of oppression.  Do you think that the people Christopher Columbus met called themselves Indio? That was a word given to them, a label that now has hundreds of years of history and oppression behind it and millions of people made to feel less through the use of it. I am but one voice.  My story and my experiences are but my own.

But I am not alone. In fact, my voice has been paltry compared to those who have had this campaign going for years and today they had an amazing, all be it imperfect, victory. Didymos has said that they are changing the name of the Indio wrap. Hard Stop, Y’all. A huge corporation that has been the industry leader for FORTY YEARS is changing the name of it’s flagship product because of an organic grass-roots movement of conscientious caregivers. Perhaps I am too old and jaded, but I never thought I’d see this day. These babywearers fought the man and won today. And although not a single one has ever met me, has ever known about my childhood shoe insecurities, has ever heard the story of the wrap that shook my world at Costco, they fought for me. They have made a difference to me and they deserve my thanks and appreciation. Thank you for fighting the good fight. Thank you for not giving up. Thank you for this seemingly small victory, it is not nearly as small as it seems.

In the end, I sold that Indio wrap in the same Costco parking lot (true story). A thing that had originally brought so much joy represented hundreds of years of oppression and roughly $3k in therapy. I looked at my little brown baby carried by my fat (Indio) arms, walking in my wide (Indio) feet, and playing with my straight (Indio) hair and I smiled hoping that whatever her insecurities were (because we all will have them), they wouldn’t be wrapped (literally) around this negative idea of being, “Indio.”

------------------------------------------------------ Cynthia Soliz is a liability attorney in Austin, TX, a volunteer with BWI Greater Austin and BWI National, and the okayest mom to The Fuss and The Little Bit. The opinions expressed above are strictly her own (damn right) and she received no compensation for her writing. She is an avid (borrowed) babywearer and blogs enthusiastically at various other sites. She really hopes her mother and grandmother aren’t reading this because despite the tone of this writing, her childhood was quite lovely… and she can’t take the Mexican guilt.

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Didymos English-language website circa June/July 2016

Edited to add: I would like to point out that the language here is likely a translation from the original German, so I think it's unfair to make inferences from specific words here. Especially given that I, as a native English speaker, found word choices and phrasing elsewhere to be odd and clunky. Others may disagree, but I extend grace on this point.

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The Racist and Appropriative Nature of Didymos' Indios

“Indio”, in Spanish, is a racial slur directed towards indigenous and indigenous-looking peoples in Latin America and Latinx communities. As a US-born Mexicana, I’ve grown up understanding that being told “pareces bien india” (you look really indian) is not a compliment. Since colonization, indigenous peoples have been looked down upon, oppressed, and marginalized. While threads of indigeneity have woven themselves into our (Latinx) cultures, indigenous peoples are derided and mocked for their indigeneity. You may be wondering how this relates to the woven wraps of a German company. Well, let me tell you… The birth of Didymos as a company was based on Erika Hoffmann’s local fame of wearing a rebozo she was gifted by friends who had been vacationing in Mexico (note: sometimes the company history says “Central America” or “Latin America” as though the three are equally interchangeable). The subsequent design of Didymos’ Indio bears striking resemblance to the design and pattern work of Zapotec peoples’ textiles. Given that the gifted rebozo was from the Mesoamerican region, it is easy to extrapolate that the Didymos Indio design was “inspired” by the work of the Zapotec peoples. And at one point, Didymos actually said as much on the English-language version of their website: “We borrowed from the original Native American wrap in our design and therefore decided to call it ‘Indio’.” So… we have a German woven wrap design stolen (or “borrowed”) from indigenous peoples of a country colonized by Spaniards that is labeled with a Spanish-language racial slur hurled at indigenous peoples. The layers of colonization, appropriation, and racism are thick here. And I do offer some amount of grace to Didymos and the benefit of the doubt in that Erika Hoffmann probably didn't know “Indio” is a pejorative. I doubt most Spaniards feel about that word the way indigenous and indigenous-looking peoples of Mexico and myriad Central and Latin American countries feel. However, it is still a derogatory term, and now that it is being repeatedly brought to their attention they must act upon this knowledge. Now, when I have raised the issue of “Indio” I have been rebuked with this forum conversation: http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/indio-has-a-derogatory-meaning-in-mexico-california.120414/ Note, the people defending the term are claiming authority by proximity to culture. So really, this forum matters not one iota in these conversations. I’ve also seen some Latinx people say “some of us are reclaiming the term.” To that I genuinely say, good for you and your circle of intimates who choose to use a traditionally derogatory term as a term of endearment. However, the principle in which we say non-black people can’t say the n-word; it applies here. People who are not indigenous to the “Americas” and thus not also recovering from the long-lasting effects of Spanish colonization don’t get to use that word. As for the appropriation of the design, this is no doubt the original sin in Western/”Modern” Babywearing. Hoffmann and Didymos are touted as the “pioneers of modern babywearing.” That this legacy of pioneering was and continues to be built upon designs stolen from indigenous people is the epitome of appropriation. Don't misunderstand me. Babywearing is a vital parenting tool and I personally believe that all cultures must have some history of babywearing. My contention here is not with the act of babywearing. It is with stealing design work of marginalized and oppressed peoples, labeling it with a racial slur, and then profiting off those offenses for decades. At this point you may be asking what I expect be done. I expect Didymos to cease production of Indio and its derivatives (including but not limited to Grande, Old Standard, 55, and Inka). That is the only just path here. So, my dear fellow babywearers… Your “Indios” are racist. If you, having read this far, and choose to continue carrying your babies in cloth dripping in colonization, racism, and appropriation that is on you. But I hope, after reading this far, you choose to follow the adage of “when you know better, you do better”. Please, do better. Please, ditch your “Indios”.