Last semester, my Native American history professor, Constance Rynder, posed a question to me concerning one of my editorials, which dealt with the overzealous nature of political correctness in the United States.
She asked what I thought of universities and cities with Native American mascots or parades featuring fictitious chiefs, wondering if tribes were justified in their fight against the use of such imagery.
For example, last year, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and North Dakota’s attorney general were nearly able to fine the University of North Dakota for using the name and image of the “Fighting Sioux.”
However, the college reached an agreement with the NCAA and attorney general granting the school three years to gain the approval of local tribes.
I’m completely supportive of Native Americans seeking judicial action against sports mascots and various other forms of iconography which they consider demeaning not only due to the lengthy string of betrayals and horrors endured by the hundreds of tribes across the American continent, but also because of the implications it spells for contemporary relations between Native and non-Native peoples.
Those in favor of Native American mascots usually support their position by positing that they represent the strength and bravery of Native Americans, or its simply harmless fun.
However, one must understand how offensive a generic “every-Indian” character with headdress and moccasins appears. The clothing, the dancing, the war paint and beads – everything carries cultural and symbolic significance for entire tribes. It’s disrespectful to reduce such cultural objects as merchandise for a football or baseball team.
Granted some people will perceive these notions as another form of excessive political correctness. In current American culture very few things are sacred.
It wasn’t long ago that I watched God personified on an episode of Family Guy impressing a woman with lightning, then killing her and running away.
Not that mocking the powers that be is inherently terrible (it’s as American as America), but we must view the situation from a Native American perspective.
The Native American cultural heritage is one of the last vestiges of a past annihilated by colonization and replaced by centuries of social and psychological exile within their own land.
It’s a precious treasure deserving of respect.
These mascots are essentially caricatures similar to the derogatory watermelon-lipped, unkempt hair of the pickaninny or the subservient, buck-toothed East Asian.
The only difference between these three examples is that the mascots are not used to purposely insult Native Americans. Yet, the cultural ignorance remains.
In my opinion, these mascots represent a vast lack of knowledge among non-Natives concerning Native American culture, which is especially disconcerting considering their vast import on the development of America.
They are the “every-Indian”, the one-size-fits-all mold of Native American history. These images reveal a profoundly limited understanding of Indian society.
This is an era where, still, many Americans don’t know much more about Indians than buffaloes, teepees, Thanksgiving, Geronimo, Pocahontas, and an occasional John Wayne movie.
Perhaps, if there were not such a lack of information among non-Indians then the mascot issue would not be such a problem.
It’s a matter of cultural respect, understanding, and perspective.
I’m pretty confident that if some sports team were bold enough to use Jesus as a mascot then Christians would flood D.C. in caravans with pickets and protests.
If one wishes to honor the strength and bravery of indigenous peoples, then learn their histories.
Don’t buy an arena ticket.