Olivia Culpo
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Jeremy Vuolo Accused of Cultural Appropriation by His Own Fans
As much as we enjoy photos of Jinger Duggar’s family, this latest photo was weird … and controversial.
Jeremy Vuolo shared a strange image of him with baby Felicity and a Native American tipi.
Followers are accusing him of cultural appropriation.
Jeremy Vuolo shared a curious picture on Instagram.
In the snap, he is holding baby Felicity while being obscured by what looks like fog.
Before them is a miniature tipi (also spelled teepee).
“Time for reflection,” Jeremy captioned the post, as if that explained anything.
It’s unclear if he is referring to the presence of a mirror in the photo.
He may have instead meant, on a more serious note, that he’s reflecting upon Native American culture.
Some fans were confused.
“What is this supposed to mean?” one commenter asks.
Others are worried that he’s misusing another culture’s symbols and traditions.
“If there is a deeper meaning behind this post please do share,” another commenter implores.
“If not,” they continue. “Please know that taking elements of another culture (especially one that has been as mistreated as Native Americans).”
That commenter concludes: “and using them flippantly for your own artistic design is completely inappropriate.”
Followers continued to try to figure out what Jeremy’s post was all about.
“I googled it, guys,” one commenter shares. “And some places are saying November is Native American month.”
“Perhaps as ‘Thanksgiving’ comes it’s a moment to reflect on the atrocities inflicted on the first nations people,” another suggested.
That would be very seasonally appropriate, folks. But others were concerned.
“It’s fairly regularly accepted that cultural appropriation is insensitive,” writes another.
“Benefitting from someone else’s culture,” another writes, is “not OK.”
Some jumped to some very different conclusions about Jeremy’s post.
“Why teepee?” one asked bluntly. “Are you racist too?”
Another jumped to a conclusion on the opposite end of the spectrum.
“Are you Native American?” one asked.
“Hard to understand the meaning of the pic,” another noted. “I am Apache though, so if you are that’s great.”
The Apache nation is not known for tipis.
Tipis are sometimes mistakenly attributed to all Native Americans, but were and are in fact unique to people of the Plains region of North America.
(Tipis are still used for some ceremonies, if no longer used for dwellings)
Native American cultures in other regions used different types of dwellings, including elaborate structures.
It’s understandable that people would be on their guard about Native American cultural heritage being misused by white people.
But one follower commented that this is not what is happening.
“Ya’ll, he is in Oklahoma at a Native American history museum,” the commenter writes. “Chill!!!!”
Tipis are often the subject of misunderstanding.
While tipis are conceptually similar to the European lavvu, they are part of a few Native American cultures and are not for anyone else to misuse.
The Native American cultural heritage more likely to be misused are things like war bonnets and terms like “spirit animal.”
But it doesn’t look like Jeremy Vuolo is doing any of that.
We’re happy to call out cultural appropriation or other wrongdoings when we see it. But that’s not what was happening here.
With context, we see that he was practicising cultural appreciation in a museum.
Let’s save our outrage for the people and actions that deserve it.
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David Beador and Lesley Cook: Engaged?
David Beador may be in the midst of a messy divorce from Shannon Beador, but he’s also dating again.
He and his girlfriend, Lesley Cook, embarked upon a romantic vacation to Greece.
But the photos that Lesley shared have followers suspicious that the two of them are engaged.
“Somebody pinch me,” Lesley captioned this photo, snapped by David Beador.
The couple was on a plane that was still being boarded at LAX.
A romantic getaway to Greece is a great sign for their relationship, but fans think that there’s more to it.
Notice how Lesley appears to be conspicuously hiding the fingers of one of her hands?
Fans believe that she’s concealing an engagement ring … and that the image may even have been flipped to further obfuscate an engagement.
Once in Greece, Lesley’s pattern of never showing both hands at once continues.
We don’t mean to distract from their romantic adventures, either.
They saw a number of gorgeous sites, including the sacred ruins of the Parthenon.
“Beautiful night with my love!” Lesley gushed on social media. “This view is surreal!”
This image in particular really piqued people’s curiosity.
We hate to take attention away from the beautiful sights, but … look at how David’s hand is covering Lesley’s.
Fans believe that this image may have been reversed.
If so, David’s fingers are doing a mostly adequate job of covering up Lesley’s ring finger … but you can tell that there’s something there.
If they did get engaged, perhaps it was before this vacation.
Lesley may be trying to strike a balance between proudly wearing the ring in person and not revealing it over the internet.
Dating a public figure can present some very unusual challenges.
The two of them seemed to enjoy their time in Greece (we should hope so!).
They enjoyed a stunning view of the Parthenon at night while on a dinner date at Hotel Grande Bretagne.
A number of their photos were in Athens, but they didn’t spend all of their time in Greece in one place.
It looks like they tried to balance sightseeing with making time for their romance and relationship.
That’s what you want to aim for on a romantic vacation — whether or not it’s also to celebrate an engagement.
So, if these two are engaged, why cover it up?
They’ve been dating for nearly a year, right? So it’s not like they’re rushing things.
Maybe it has to do with David’s ongoing divorce negotiations.
(At the very least, it might be smart to not piss off Shannon while they’re still haggling over money)
Maybe they want to finish telling all of their friends and family before they announce it to the public.
Or maybe Lesley just hopes to avoid getting hate from some of Shannon’s more zealous fans.
To be honest, if they’re not engaged, we’d be at a loss to explain why Lesley’s hands can’t both appear in a recent photo.
If they’re engaged, congratulations are in order, we suppose.
Shannon is moving on, so it’s only fair that David does, too. We hope that the three Beador girls like Lesley.
David was kind of a jerk to Shannon, from cheating and body-shaming during their marriage to getting so aggressive during the divorce.
We hope that he’s found some chill, or Lesley might go through all of those same things that Shannon did.
If David doesn’t want to pay support to Shannon, one day, he may balk at paying it to Lesley.
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