Mascots And Discrimination In Sports

In a majority of cases, this view is even endorsed by the tribes themselves (Morrison). They argue that the restriction and ultimate elimination of the Native American mascot would also abolish the nation’s historic view of this cultural entity as characters of strength, determination, boldness, resourcefulness and courage. They contend that these same positive attributes are not only required by athletes, but are held expectations of the sporting community. The pursuant argument entails that there is an inherent oddity in the suggestion that naming a team after an Indian tribe is a calculated insult.

A common question about this topic is, “Insult or Honor?” Professional clubs aren’t the only ones with Native American names and mascots. Teams across our nation are preaching constantly it 's for honor not as an insult. The public views on

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,

Chief Wahoo, a logo of the Cleveland Indians, Major League Baseball team. Chief Wahoo, pertains to a cartoon logo that is shown to exemplify a Native American like figure. Like many other logos that indirectly represents Native Americans, people believe that Chief Wahoo is a racist figure and should be changed and not be represented. Although, others may disagree on the matter. Which brings forth the question of, is Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo considered derogatory and racist?

They still wanted to make use of the school’s distinctive red jerseys, so the name now refers to the colour of their uniform. Considering the root of those jerseys was meant to imitate the native people’s red skin, some might still find the new mascot offensive. At the University of Hawaii, “the Rainbow Warriors” were deemed offensive by the students because rainbows are associated with the gay community. In response to this controversy, the university allowed each team to pick it’s own mascot, most teams are known simply as “the Warriors,” while others chose to take a more progressive approach. The basketball team is still known as “the Rainbow Warriors,” but the baseball team, perhaps the most tolerant, is simply known as “the Rainbows.” For St. Bonaventure University, the name change was brought on by embarrassment. The men’s teams were known as “the Brown Indians, “which is offensive on it’s own. The women’s teams were called the “Brown Squawks” until 1979, when a Seneca chief informed them that the name was their word for “vagina,” a fitting term for a women’s team, although not family friendly.

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,

The controversy over the naming of sports teams after ethnic groups has been boiling since the mid-twentieth century. Sports teams in America, ranging from Pee-wee leagues, high schools, and colleges to Professional sports, have used any enumeration of nick names and mascots by which to represent their team with pride and sometimes even comedy. However, the lines of political correctness have been greatly and maybe even intentionally blurred in terms of the use of specific ethnic groups within team names and the use of the stereotypical image of those teams’ caricatures, the native-American in particular. Of the four major professional sports team franchises included in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL that do possess ethnic monikers, only two are of Caucasoid based ethnicity, whereas the other 5 are direct references to Native American ethnicity or stereotypes

Students take pride in their mascots. Why would a team pick a mascot that they take pride in if the mascot was going to be made fun of? Topic of debate writer Jim McDonald says, ”team mascot names are not racist, the writer correctly gave the definition of racism,

     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

Nowadays we do not see the Indians or Redskins as a negative way of describing a race or culture. We see them as professional teams that play hard and get our spirits up. Out of all teams, I would say that the Redskins is probably the most racist of all names because of the term it was used years ago. I would change the name to something more honorable towards Native Americans. Braves is actually more honorable than Redskins because they are identifying Native Americans as Brave rather than a negative stereotype of a name. The team name, Redskins, has actually received backlash for many years because it was seen as insulting and offensive to people of Native American culture. After many polls of whether to keep the name or not, 83 percent of people chose to keep the name as it was not used as racial slur. At this point, the team names are not meant as a racial slur so there shouldn't be any

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

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 Indian’s baseball team is in the playoffs again. I have been attending class wearing my Indian’s apparel with the team symbol, Chief Wahoo, to show my support. But the political correctness crowd, keep trying to dampen my enthusiasm with their constant condemnation of that venerable, smiling caricature that has served the team so well. Over and over again, we hear how the innocent Wahoo symbol is disrespectful of American Indians. I just don’t buy that argument.

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.

People are complaining about the logos being offensive but in reality it is only a small percent of Native Americans that are upset with the logos. Of course you can not ignore people's opinions but when it is the minority that is complaining you have to respect the silent majority. "Opinions around the use of Indian-related nicknames are as diverse as the people you ask," says Kerry Steiner, executive director of the Indiana Native American Indian Affairs Commission. "There are some Native Americans opposed to using nicknames but there are many who are in favor of keeping them. ”(Kelly).