June 11, 2010
San Francisco, California


AIM-West Statement to MTV re: Dudesons 

AIM-West, the San Francisco chapter of the American Indian Movement, demands that MTV immediately discontinue public broadcasting the Cowboys and Findians episode of the show The Dudesons In America, due to its intolerably offensive racist content. Furthermore, we insist that MTV issue a public apology to Native American people for perpetuating the use of Jim Crow-era racial stereotypes, thereby insulting and inflicting far-reaching emotional harm upon our communities.

The Dudesons' Cowboys and Findians episode presents a redface minstrel show as acceptable comedy. Such blatant racism would never be tolerated if the show's writers targeted any other American ethnic minority. This discrepancy is painfully obvious when we re-imagine the Dudesons' cast performing similar caricatures of African Americans or Jewish Americans. We challenge MTV to explain such inconsistency.

The real-life consequences of racial stereotypes in the media are well documented in academia and widely understood by the general public. Subsequently, it is outrageous that MTV, an international media network that claims to actively promote efforts to end the practices of racial discrimination(1), would engage in exactly the same behavior it so proudly condemns.

Even more troubling is the notion that MTV feels that such racially objectionable imagery is acceptable viewing material for children and young adults. Viacom's own promotional material explicitly states that MTV's programming targets the 12-34 year-old age group and that MTV is the "leading multimedia brand for today’s youth"(2). According the National Institute of Mental Health, Native Americans suffer the highest suicide rate of any ethnic minority in the United States(3). Furthermore, the suicide rate among Native youth in the Great Plains is 10 times the national average(4). With the odds so stacked against our young people, it is unconscionable that MTV believes that programming that is directly and demonstrably injurious to the self-esteem of a severely at-risk population is acceptable.

AIM-West calls on MTV Networks, its parent company Viacom and all sponsors of The Dudesons In America to publicly address our demand to suspend the public broadcasting of the Cowboys and Findians episode and take immediate action to rectify the injury and insult to the Native American community, *beginning* with a public apology.



American Indian Movement – West
P.O. Box 410534
San Francisco, CA 94141
http://www.aimwest.info



Endnotes:

1 http://www.mtv.com/thinkmtv/features/discrimination/racism/index.jhtml
2 http://www.viacom.com/ourbrands/medianetworks/mtvnetworks/Pages/mtv.aspx
3 http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml
4 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/us/09suicide.html
---------