American Indian mascots should go

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 25, 2005 by Rich Heffern

A sports-page headline screams: "Cowboys scalp Redskins to maintain lead." The logo of the Cleveland "Indians" is a buck-toothed, big-nosed caricature of a Native American. The University of North Dakota bookstore sells sweatpants with the word "Sioux" stenciled across the backside. For several years, a T-shirt graphically showing a Native American having sex with a buffalo has been worn by North Dakota State University fans. Yet some sports columnists still name anti-mascot activists as whiners and "fusspots."

A little investigation reveals that people against Indian sports mascots truly aren't a tiny, whiny liberal minority. In a survey by Indian Country Today magazine, for example, 81 percent of respondents reported use of American Indian names, symbols and mascots are predominantly offensive and deeply disparaging to Native Americans.

In one survey done by a Stanford University psychologist, the results indicated that among Native American high school students 50 percent said they opposed Native mascots; 50 percent said they didn't mind. But overall, 90 percent said they felt it was disrespectful. When asked why they didn't mind being used as a mascot even if they felt it disrespectful, students responded: "It's better than being invisible." Cornel Pewewardy, a Native American educator and professor at the University of Kansas, spells it out thusly: "Native" Americans would never have associated the sacred practice of becoming a warrior with the hoopla of a high school pep rally, half-time entertainment, being a sidekick to cheerleaders, or royalty in homecoming pageants.... Indian mascots exhibit either idealized or comical facial features and 'native' dress, ranging from body-length feathered headdresses to more subtle fake buckskin attire or skimpy loincloths.

"Some teams and supporters display counterfeit Indian paraphernalia, including foam tomahawks, feathers, face paints, and symbolic drums and pipes.... These negative images, symbols and behaviors plaY a crucial role in distorting and warping Native American children's cultural perceptions of themselves as well as non-Indian children's attitudes toward Native peoples. Most of these proverbial stereotypes are manufactured racist images that prevent millions of students from understanding the past and current authentic human experience of Native Americans."

Much like Holocaust deniers, mascot lovers seem to be willfully ignorant of the large body of evidence against their position.

Virtually every America Indian advocacy group in the country has spoken out against mascots, including the Washington-based National Congress of American Indians, the American Indian Movement, Indian Psychologists of the Americas, Native American Journalists Association, Concerned American Indian Parents, and more. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, chaired by Elsie Meeks, a Lakota, has officially endorsed retiring institutionalized "Indian" sports team tokens from public schools. The NAACP and the National Education Association have also weighed in against Indian sports mascots.

Even the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the "Washington Redskins" trademark is derogatory.

In a CBS news interview, Native American author Sherman Alexie said: "The mascot thing gets me really mad. Don't think about it in terms of race. Think in terms of religion. Those are our religious imagery up there: feather, paint, the sun. You couldn't have a Catholic priest running around the floor with a basketball throwing Communion wafers. You couldn't have a rabbi running around."

"I use a two-fold analysis," said Chad Smith, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. In an interview in Indian Today magazine, he explained: "The first one is called Anaweg, who is my year-old daughter. Does it teach her the truth about Indians? If the image doesn't I have no use for it. The second is Nedsin, my deceased father. Does it honor our ancestors? If it doesn't, I have no use for it. That is how I look at all the stuff I see about Indians."

Barbara Munson, member of the Oneida nation, digs down to the heart. of the problem: "People ask 'Aren't you proud of your warriors?' I always answer: 'Yes, and we don't want them demeaned by being "honored" in a sports activity.' Indian men are not limited to the role of warrior. In many of our cultures, a good man is learned, gentle, patient, wise and deeply spiritual. In present time as well as in the past our men are also sons and brothers, husbands, uncles, fathers and grandfathers. Contemporary Indian men wear contemporary clothes and live and love just as men from other cultural backgrounds do.... What's more many Indian nations are both matrilineal and child-centered. Indian cultures identify women with the Creator, because of their ability to bear children, and with the Earth, which is mother to us all."

If nonbelligerent people of Irish descent were upset by Notre Dame's nickname or members of the Sons of the Vikings by the football franchise in Minneapolis, then these names should be changed as well. The fact is that few object to these names, yet a growing number of people around the country are campaigning against Native American mascots and nicknames.