Controversial Mascots Research Paper

All sports teams have a mascot cherished by fans across the country. However teams like the Washington Redskins and the Atlanta braves have fallen under fire for their references to Native American culture.All sports teams names that reference native Americans should be allowed because they are just names and shouldn't be viewed as offensive, and some teams that change their name or logo may lose some of their fan base.

A fan once said “There goes the Redskins season” and most times they are right. Although some people find this offensive. Not for the season part but for the name of the teams. For at least two years now fans and simple people have debated whether or not the teams name redskins was offensive to the Native Americans. Some say that it was offensive to the native people, Others disagreed. Having a team named after you is always respectful but in this case it is very offensive to the native American people.

Sometime in your life, you have most likely attended a school that had some sort of mascot. These mascots, often animals, are carefully selected to represent not only the school’s competitive teams, but also the whole student body. Mascots are also used to represent professional sports teams. However, the use of Native Americans, an entire race of millions of people, as mascots is extremely insulting and should be banned.

When one typically thinks about a Native American, they picture this ideological representation of a Native American as depicted by popular culture. Native Americans are underrepresented on television, in books, in news, and all other forms of media. We, as a society, have chosen a path of ignorance in which we have chosen not to educate ourselves or our future generations on the true culture of Native Americans. We have ignored the negative impacts of using mascots such as “Redskins” and instead let it serve as a stereotype to fill our heads with unrealistic views and understandings of Native American culture. The resulting misconceptions leave many Native American students with a feeling of inferiority and questioning their self-worth.

A native man being called a redskin, first time he’d ever heard the word and being offended by it.Now, that same word is the name of a football team known as The Washington Redskins.Ole Miss Rebels, a football team, had to rename the team in order to not be racist towards African Americans. The Washington Reskins, years after knowing people were emotionally hurt by the name, kept it.Many Natives protest and refuse to be a mascot, but yet the name is still on their jerseys. The Washington Redskins are aware that they are invidious to some Native Americans, but fail to change the name and feel the need to keep it.

Teams that have the name like Redskins, Indians, and Red Raiders are racist terms used as mascots. Interchange the name with the Negroes, the Jews or the Asians and that sounds even worse but, it all means the same thing. They are all racist terms that no one should use to represent something like a team name. According to racismagainstindians.org, Native Americans were banned from practicing their own religion and would be often thrown in jail if they were caught all the way up to 1978. But when nonnative people at sporting events would dance and sing their songs it would be completely okay. This makes no sense,

Dating back several hundreds of years ago, Native Americans have been deprived, dehumanized, and demoralized ever since Christopher Columbus and his men came and seized the land from the Indigenous Peoples. There have been many tactics that have been used to strip the dignity of the Indigenous Peoples, but the use of an American Indian sports mascot is one tactic that has been in effect since 1932. There are some supporters of these various American Indian sports mascots such as Dan Snyder, the current team owner of the Washington Redskins, that do not feel that these sports mascots have any negative connotations. Dan Snyder may have had a few points when he wrote his letter, but he fails to realize that the American Indian Sports Mascots are

There has been many controversy with teams using Native American name for mascots and has become a major issue in today’s society. Many have viewed the Washington Redskins as honor for Native Americans, others see it racist, insensitive, and demeaning. Woods (2016) claims that “the complaint is that the use of stereotypical team names, mascots, and logos perpetuates an ideology that dehumanizes and demeans the cultures of Native Americans” (p. 298). Since the issue arise, many scholars, journalists and leaders have joined the battle to ensure that each team will eliminate the nicknames since it is considered abusive or hostile. It may take time but the trend is growing. More than 1,400 professional, collegiate,

Many people look at the Washington Redskins logo and see it just the same as any of the other NFL teams’ logos. So, why take the time and money to change their brand for the very few amount of people that think it’s little offensive? In the past couple of years, a lot of people see many pro and college sports teams differently because of their mascot or logo. Native Americans, whose culture diminished ever since Europeans stepped onto the shores of the East, are used as branding for all levels and divisions of athletics teams. A lot of people argue for both sides of the conflict, with one side reasoning that the logos look racist and disrespect Native American culture, and the other side reasoning that they honor Indians and there is not even an issue. However, a ton of people fighting for the Indian mascot’s removal do not know how Native Americans themselves truly feel about them. Also, the general public probably does not know either that many schools actually work with specific tribes to make sure that they respect their culture. The United States should not ban Native American mascots because most Native Americans don’t get insulted from sports teams’ logos and many teams work with tribes to make sure that they don’t disparage Indian customs and traditions.

The Native American people have a tenacious opinion on whether the Washington Redskins team should change their name due to its derogatory meaning. According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, the word “Redskin” is defined as Native American, but is specifically stated to be “Usually Offensive”(Merriam-Webster). The Native Americans deeply thought that the names, symbols, and mascots were completely disrespectful,

The debate about whether or not the Washington Redskins should change their name has been a topic for a long time. Some Native Americans have often considered the name a racial slur and think that the league should get rid of the name as it doesn’t represent Native Americans in the best way possible. In 1937 the Redskins moved to Washington and decided to retain the name even though it had faced backlash then. Since then the team has over time shown more caution on using slogans that may disrespect Native Americans. Some slogans they did use include “On the Warpath, with a cartoon drawing of an angry Indian, and another called “Teepee Talk, featuring a clip-art Indian sticking his head out of a tepee” (Shapira, 2016, Para.5). There will always be a debate if the team should get rid of its name but for right now Washington’s football teams name is the Redskins.

The dispute over whether Native American mascots should be used as a team symbol dates back to the 1970’s (Price 2). There are those who are passionately against Native American mascots. These advocators insist that Native American mascots are degrading to

     Many people do not consider themselves supporting Native American mascots that depict them in a bad manner. But when people walk around with a Atlanta Braves shirt on with a Indian with a tomahawk in his hand, it is degrading to the Indians. It is stereotyping them. School mascots and Sports team’s mascots are named after groups of people for no reason known. Notre Dame was founded by Irish Catholics, but their sports team was named the Fighting Irish. The name Fighting Irish has nothing to do with the Irish Catholics, it depicts them in a wrong way.(Price, 3). Team names can be changed to similar names that do not depict certain groups of people. Like the Redskins can be called the Red Hawks or the

Almost everybody loves going to sporting events and seeing all the excited fans as well as the energized mascots. There has been quite a variety of mascots and logos seen in schools whether it be high schools or colleges and in professional leagues. According to a search done by an ESPN FiveThirtyEight reporter through a database known as MascotDB, out of the 42,624 teams in the database at the time there were 2,129 sports teams that have reference to Native Americans (Munguia). That’s about a five percent of all mascots while Native American only make up roughly two percent of the population of the United States in 2014 (US Census). There has been much debate and controversy around mascots and team names that reference Native American throughout the years and gaining more attention especially with the most public debate regarding National

The controversy behind the mascot dates back decades, beginning in 1972 Native American leaders urged former team President Edward Bennett Williams to lose the Redskin mascot. These delegations were ineffective in changing the name. However, they were somewhat affective and resulted in the lyrics of their fight song changing from “Scalp ‘um” to “Beat ‘em” (Shapira, 2016). The controversy died down until recent years with recent up rise regarding the mascot. The consensual argument of rallying Native Americans can be summed up by one statement by a respondent regarding the term, “… a racist holdover from another day, a time when Indians were depicted as violent, ignorant and savages by whites who largely were equally violent, ignorant and