BARROW, Alaska. Frustrated by their failure to discourage Eskimos from whaling, leading environmental groups say they will shift their focus to fashion incentives, offering the indigenous people preppy whale-pattern clothing if they will give up their traditional form of hunting.
“Do the men’s slacks come in pink and green?”
“Whaling used to be big on Nantucket, too,” said Evan Frasier, executive director of World Watch, referring to the island that is part of Massachusetts. “Now the only whales you see there are in the upscale clothing stores and knick-knack shops.”
Preppy green whale slacks: Must-have summer fashion item.
Members of the Inupiat tribe have engaged in subsistence whaling for over 2,000 years, a history that makes it hard to persuade them to change to a shopping-driven diet. “I don’t know why anyone would want to eat blubber when you can have fried dough or frozen yogurt,” said Mindy Merget, a tourist visiting Nantucket for the first time. “You’re not allowed to take snacks into the stores, but then you couldn’t fit a whale through the front doors of most of them.”
“I found the cutest little whale purse at Talbot’s!”
The term “preppy” refers to a subculture within the larger demographic group of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or “WASPs”, a former dominant race that declined in influence due to inbreeding and poor fashion choices. “Preppies” are concentrated in the Northeast, where their ancestors’ whaling culture survives only as an ornamental symbol festooned on polo shirts, culottes and other fun casual wear.
“You went to school in Alaska? Where’s that?”
Indigenous peoples abandon their totems–animals that supposedly watch over and protect them–only reluctantly, according to anthropologists. “It’s not something a primitive mind can process quickly,” said Mircea Mykonos, a professor at the University of Wisconsin. “Generally speaking, you won’t persuade them to do so until belts and other accessories are marked down to half-price after Labor Day.”
