Custer Rides Again in McDonald's Happy Meal
by Tim Giago - 9 June 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-giago/custer-rides-again-in-mcd_b_213150.html
Say it isn't so! Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer has invaded Lakota country
again, this time through the Happy Meals sold to little children at McDonald's.
Bobbie DuBray, Administrative Assistant for the Lakota Peoples Law Project was
not only shocked by this apparent display of racial insensitivity, but also
angered by it.
DuBray says, "I went through the drive thru at McDonalds on East North
Street to get a Happy Meal for my five-year-old son. I got home and my brother
opened the meal and found the Custer doll." She said he then asked her to
come and look at what he found. To her shock it was Custer toy. Her son wanted
the toy and she told him, "No. that's a bad toy." She said that her 10
year old daughter did not understand why the toy was bad. She and her mother,
Betty Handley, then gave the girl a history lesson "My daughter was not
taught about this in school. What are they teaching our children?" she
asked.
DuBray, visibly upset by this experience, said, "I think it's insulting.
It's like handing out KKK dolls in the south where there are a lot of
Blacks."
Belva Morrison, Indian Child Welfare Specialist for the Lakota Law Project, said
that DuBray told her about the doll incident this morning. Morrison said,
"It is insensitive for local merchants to hand out these dolls where there
is a large Indian population. They should have thought twice about promoting
these figurines. I don't believe we're overacting. I think we are not tolerating
things like this anymore. They're targeting young kids whose minds are easily
impressed."
Pam Duncan, executive director for United Sioux Tribes, when asked about the
Custer figurines said, "Why are they honoring Custer? I don't know how they
[McDonalds] could be so insensitive. Especially the way we are experiencing
racism right now. That's teaching our kids the wrong culture."
Dana Knight a mother, and a United Sioux Tribes employee said, "I don't
want no Custer in my house."
Tim Swimmer who happened to be nearby offered his comment. He said, "It's
like history is repeating itself." He was bothered by the apparent
insensitivity shown by the McDonald's chain to a very sensitive issue in Lakota
country. Custer is best known to the Lakota as an "Indian killer," and
as the man who attacked an encampment of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho at the
Little Big Horn and paid the ultimate price for this folly. He was the head of
the 7th Cavalry unit that attacked a sleeping camp of Cheyenne/Arapaho on the
Washita in Oklahoma ruthlessly slaughtering men, women and children.
Josh Ullmark, Restaurant Manager of the McDonald's on East North Street, the
McDonald's most frequented by Native Americans, said he was aware that the
Custer figurines were being distributed in the Happy Meals. When Ullmark was
asked for a comment he offered an 800 number for McDonalds Midwest Regional
Office in Peoria, Illinois and refused to comment.
The Happy Meal prize shows the man they labeled "General Custer" (he
was a Lt. Colonel) riding a motorcycle and his figurine is accompanied by a card
explaining a bit of Custer's history. "Ever hear of Custer's last stand? It
was named after George Armstrong Custer who lead (their spelling) his troops
into the battle at Little Big Horn," the card reads.
The question that immediately came to the mind of Jason Wolters, an Oglala
Lakota, was, "I don't think the big shots at McDonald's realize what an
insult this is to the Lakota people. Here was a man responsible for the death of
many Lakota and a man responsible for discovering the gold that eventually led
to the theft of the Sacred Black Hills of the Great Sioux Nation, and they have
the audacity to hand out his likeness to children here in Rapid City, a town now
fighting to prove it is not a racist community?"
Wolters compared the insult to putting a figurine of Adolph Hitler in a
McDonald's Happy Meal served in Tel Aviv, Israel. "Most white people would
never understand our perspective on this horrible faux paux, but to every Indian
in America, the insult is obvious," he said.
He added, "Most advertising agencies are in the east and the people who put
the ads and flyers together have absolutely no idea about the demographics out
here in Indian country. We Lakota never see an Indian in the flyers of Kohl's,
J. C. Penney's or Wal-Mart. They never stop to consider that our Lakota children
never see people like themselves in the flyers and ads they send out here and
yet you can go to Chicago or San Francisco and see ads with African Americans
and Asian Americans.
Yesterday several customers, white and Indian, visited different McDonald's
shops in Rapid City and ordered Happy Meals. They soon discovered their packets
did not contain a Custer figurine and motorcycle. They went to the counter and
specifically asked for a Custer memento and were told there were none to be had.
Customers buying Happy Meals without the Custer figurine were offered refunds on
the meal if they so requested. It became apparent that McDonald's withdrew the
offensive Custer figurines quietly and without comment.
{Tim Giago is the editor of Native Sun News and this story will break in his
newspaper tomorrow. He is the founder of the Native American Journalists
Association and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1991.}
Note from Tashna --
Here are images of the toy.
McDonald's is distributing this toy along with 7 other toys. All from the
movie, "Night at the Museum 2." The other toys include:
1. Easter Island Head
2. Albert Einstein
3. Amelia Earhart
4. Octavius riding a squirrel
5. Able the Space Monkey
6. Rexy (Dinosaur Bones)
7. Larry with octopus
You can see the toys online (currently) at the official McDonald website. Just
click on "Night at the Museum 2" and then select "Toys."
http://www.happymeal.com/en_US/index.html
McDonald's does not appear to have removed the "Custer" toy
altogether, maybe only at certain locations that complained.
In the movie, there is a Sacajawea character, you can see it in the movie
trailer. The Sacajawea character is not being distributed with the Happy
Meals. Maybe this was something McDonald's should have considered.
Here is the movie preview for, "Night at the Museum 2":
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1663697689/