Essay On Chief Wahoo

“The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand and, by the Indians involved, as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, was an armed engagement between combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho people against the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which occurred on June 25 and 26, 1876 near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory, was the most famous action of the Great Sioux War of 1876.”i Was this battle led by a courageous General or a desperate man is search of being seen as an American hero by the eyes of America?

I’m not the Indian you had in mind; a video that was written and directed by Thomas King challenges the stereotypical image that America has towards Native Americans. King is also the author of a short novel “A seat in the Garden”. This short story also challenges the established perspective that American society has towards the Native Americans. There are various stereotypes and perspectives that a majority of the public has toward a particular group. For example some of the common stereo types that are seen throughout the media are that all Asians are good at math, women are primarily sex objects, All Africans like fried chicken, and all Mexicans are gangsters. These stereo types are not completely true for an entire group, yet they

At Florida State the university directly works with the Seminole tribe to portray an accurate representation of Osceola as their mascot. They continuously work to stem away from stereotypes that many Native American mascots portray. This attempt to convey a Native American with honor has only been a semi successful attempt to repair the circle due to the fact that this practice is not widespread throughout all Native American mascots. Certain people try to spread awareness, create commercials and articles that convey the hard truth of the way Native Americans are treated in current society. However, not enough people see these attempts and for many that do the message is falling on deaf ears. They believe that Native Americans are too sensitive and need to get over it already, the injustices happened so long ago, yet what many do not realize is that these injustices are not a thing of the past, but of the present and inevitably, the future. People are forgetting and acting as if they do not exist, “there are eyes that do not see me and ears that do not hear my drum” (Kenny 70). Most unsuccessful of all is substance abuse. “We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away...my dad drinks his pain away” (Alexie 107). Everyone creates their own coping mechanism, and unfortunately for many Native Americans they turn to the bottle as

Proponents believe tribal symbols display honor and respect towards the Native American people. They cheer that the inclusion of this iconography in the athletic arena serves to pay admiration and ongoing tribute to the identity of the Native American culture. They believe that rather than extinguishing Native American mascots as a symbolic reference for schools and sports teams, the choice to sensitively use such imagery should be without sanction.

Racism towards Native American tribes and individuals have been found throughout mainstream media. From nationally broadcasted sports games to popular Hollywood movies, Native Americans people have been stereotyped and/or culturally appropriated. Many examples of these stereotypes are blatant and have been portrayed for in the media for decades.

The lack of accurate representation of Native Americans in our everyday lives has left members of society without more than a stereotype to draw from when thinking about characteristics of Native Americans. Native Americans have “relative invisibility” in mainstream media and this lets the few inaccurate portrayals, such as a sports team’s mascot, have an overwhelming amount of power in forming stereotypes (Fryberg, Markus, Oyserman, Stone, 2008, pg. 208). Many members of society have a very narrow view of what they understand a Native American to look, dress, and act. These ideas mostly come from what they see in media through the caricatures used as mascots, childhood cartoons, and similar

In Michael Dorris’s essay “Crazy Horse Malt Liquor”, he is trying to raise awareness of Native Americans stereotypes. The article begins by stating that Americans honor Indians in odd ways, and continues by saying Native Americans have become popular in culture. Dorris then continues by explaining how the Hornell Brewing Company use the imagery of Crazy Horse, a native leader, to sell their brand of liquor. Next Dorris speaks about the modern day social illness that the Native American population suffers. Dorris talks about how the U.S. government took the land of the Native then speaks about how people play warrior and still continue these stereotypes.

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

To start the article, Shakley tells the audience a story about the time he came home with a Cleveland Indians hat with the famous Chief Wahoo logo (The Cleveland Indians mascot is Chief Wahoo and is one of the most controversial mascots in American sports). This hat was later thrown in the trash by his mother (that had been fighting against Native American stereotypes her whole life), who Shakley describes as having “the look of betrayal”. Shakley uses strong words to describe his negative opinion on Native American mascots by stating that the North Dakota Fighting Sioux provoked a feeling in him that was embarrassed and angry. Shakley described it as “It was an irritant, like a long forgotten piece of shrapnel working its way to

The American Psychological Association had found that using representation of the mascots “undermines the educational experiences of members of all communities- especially those who have had little or no contact with Indigenous peoples” (APA). When people view a culture being paraded as a mascot, it can become their singular view and knowledge on the ethnic group. There is nothing to stop the formulation of what students know about Native Americans when there are few natives around. With the allowance of mascots to represent Native American in a way as they do now, wearing headdresses or war paint and using “peace pipes” has become a trend and something “cool” to do. Headdresses are traditionally a part of the Plains tribes and are considered sacred. Only revered warriors or significant people could wear war bonnets or headdresses. Feathers, especially eagle feathers, are very sacred to Native Americans. These appropriations continue to be a negative and demeaning aspect of using Native Americans as

What if there was a famous team that had their name based off the skin you have, or what race you are? Even though the name Indians shows a sign of respect to native americans, Chief Wahoo is based off one tribe and this could be offensive to native americans from that tribe. Chief wahoo is disrespectful to the native americans by what the mascot is wearing and the color of the skin. Imagine if your team is called the Cleveland Whites with white skin and a cowboy hat, how would that make you feel?

The Cleveland Indians faced pressure in Canada to get rid of there name and mascot, including a court challenge. Douglas Cardinal has filed a complaint to the Ontario Superior court to prevent the Cleveland Indians from wearing their regular jerseys, using their team name and displaying their logo, while playing in Toronto. He is an architect and officer of the order of Canada. He also filled complaints with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and Canadian Human Rights Commission. His argument is that the Cleveland Indians' team name and mascot are offensive and discriminatory to native people. There mascot is a cartoon man with red skin and a feather in his head band. Many people refer to the mascot as Chief Wahoo.

By 1876, gold had been discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gold was found on Sioux land, and this region was considered sacred to the Lakota Sioux Indians. The he land was to be protected and respected by the United States Army, because of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 18681, but the Army could not keep miners off the Sioux ground, which led to the increase of Sioux grievances towards the Americans; some grievances that are still taken offense to today. These battles and negotiations soon were known at the Great Sioux War of 1876.

Until fairly recently the popular culture of American literature and film did not attempt to study the true representations of Indians in North America. Instead they chose to concentrate on the romanticized/savage version of Native people: which is an idealistic view of a Native with long, beautiful flowing hair riding on a horse obsessed with chanting and praying to the savageness of a rowdy, wild Native causing unnecessary mayhem to the white people. This portrayal of Native people in mass media had led to the stereotyping of Natives, which in turn had ricocheted into real life. Not only do non-natives succumb to these ideals, but Natives do as well.