examples of cultural appreciation, but for this to be the case, one must take the time to understand the struggles and history of another culture. Many uses of Native mascots are devoid of this respect and understanding. Rather, the use of Native mascots is an act of cultural appropriation: "the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture." Native mascots are tied to the appropriation of Native Americans for two reasons: the first being the mascot’s appearance, and the second being the effect on the fans. The costumes and symbols that many Native mascots utilize, including eagle feathers, war bonnets, headdresses, war chants, peace pipes, and dances, …show more content…
When non-Natives don these sacred items, it desecrates the religion and culture of an entire people. Furthermore, Native mascots bring up issues of authenticity. The costumes and logos used have various degrees of cultural accuracy and take elements from various tribes and combine them, often creating a homogenized version of traditional Plains Indian attire and erasing the incredible diversity of the more than 500 Native tribes. In addition to the name, costume, and iconography that accompanies a Native mascot, there is the issue of the fans. The existence of Native mascots welcomes fans to further appropriate Native culture through the practices of wearing headdresses, painting their faces red, and engaging in yelling offensive chants. This harkens back to the decades old tradition of “playing Indian,” that goes all the way back to The Boston Tea party in 1773, and continues today on occasions such as Halloween when people of all ages dress up as Indians. Playing Indian is an offensive act in which another culture is reduced to nothing more than a costume. But sometimes, the worst offenses come from the opposing team’s …show more content…
For Native Americans themselves, Native mascots have negative effects on their self-esteem and community worth. A study in which Native American participants were shown images of Chief Wahoo revealed that the greatest negative impact was experienced by high school and college aged students who had negative feelings of personal and community worth in addition to lower levels of confidence in their academic achievement. These mascots also have negative consequences for identity construction among younger Native American students. Along with lower self-esteem and collective self-efficacy, exposure to Native mascots was revealed to decrease the student’s level of engagement and belief in their ability to achieve good grades. Researchers theorized that these adverse effects happen because Native mascots “remind American Indians of the limited ways others see them” and therefore “constrain how they can see themselves.” Native American children begin to feel shame about their cultural identity and even start to feel and act inferior to
The majority culture defends use of the Native Americans symbols in sports and many are confused by the objections raised by Native Americans. “Team Names represent something positive to the fans, People don’t name teams after things they hate.” (40 What’s in a Team Name, Banks). For example, the University of Georgia selected the “The Georgia Bulldogs as their Mascot.”(What’s in a Team Name). Their attributes are “toughness...and integrity”(What’s in a Team Name) to their mascot. Teams also look
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.
To begin with, it is racist and derogatory to use Native Americans as mascots. One town in Montana, Ronan, calls its sports teams the “Chiefs” and the “Maidens”. In several Native American cultures, maidens are considered less than or lower than women. Also, the mascots of other schools are often animals. Using Native
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,
The Native American people have been apart of America ever since the “white man” came over from Europe. There traditions have been around for as long as they have been alive. They were the first people on the land we call home today. The Native American people have done more for this land than we have and we do not appreciate them at all for that. It is crazy how some people just blow them off like they are less than us and do not get anything special, but they do not also need to be disrespected in the public eye. Professional sports teams that have Native American mascots are used in a way that disrespects the people of Native American descent. It also happens at the high school level and gives the young adults with an biased outlook on the culture and history of these people. Any sports team name with an Native American mascot should have to change there name.
Roppolo insists, “The real problem with the kind of dysconscous, symbolic, abstract racism that is perpetuated today by sports mascots… is that it enables very real, very concrete, and very conscious acts of violent racism that American Indian people still face in this country and this hemisphere on a daily basis”(228). This demonstrates how the mascot does have a detrimental impact towards Native Americans. People who are subjected to seeing Native Americans through these mascots already have fallacious perceptions of what Native Americans behave like. Due to this, people will start to react accordingly to how they feel the Native Americans are supposed to act due to the distorted stereotypes that are presented to the public. People do not even realize that they are acting this way towards Native Americans, because Roppolo claims that Americans have gotten used to being racist towards Native Americans for so long that it is now invisible, aka dysconscious racism(226). People do not realize that it is ingrained in them, so when they come into contact with a Native American they may perceive the situation different than what actually happened. Roppolo justified this by going on to add, “One young man had his brother nearly beaten to death - his skull cracked open, not just cracked - when several bouncers at a local nightclub had to control his ‘rowdy’
Sports teams use "Indian," as well as many other mascots with related themes, to honor those who are native to
A major key that people do not take into consideration when discussing the conflict of Indian mascots is the direct opinions from Native Americans. National polls taken prove Native Americans do not mind team logos
There is at least one school in every state with a Native American mascot. Using Native American mascots is an important topic and is debated all over the country. When schools select mascots,they use them for team pride, not for a joke. They are meant to show courage and bravery for that team. Using Native American images and names in professional, college, and high school sports teams does not reinforce and perpetuate stereotypes because the teams using them are taking pride in it.
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
Paola Reynua History 1301 September 28, 2016 In the article “Racism American Style and Resistance to Change: Art Education's Role in the Indian Mascot Issue” states how the author, Elizabeth M. De La Cruz, was happy and excited to attend to the University of Illinois. She was full of dreams with her expectations high about that university, but as soon as she arrived there everything was the opposite. Native Americans were using a tradition of Indians for their Mascot but not only that also a white male interpreted and Indian on one of their football games. She couldn't believe this was happening, if Americans love their Indians to death, how they could be using them as a mascot and also how Indians were just ignorant about all this
A very sensitive subject and tough question that has been asked since the early 1900's is, should controversial sports mascots be replaced with mascots that are not offensive. It is a topic that continues even today as people protest against what they believe is stereotypical sport mascots. In the article, Controversial Sports Mascots Be Replaced, the authors of each article discusses how certain groups of people, specifically Native Americans, believe certain mascots are offensive and should from sport team names. The author attempts to create sympathy within the reader by sharing a story from is youth that tells how his mom was displeased with a hat he wore home that had a Chief wahoo on it. He told how his mom "jerked his hat off and threw it in the trash" because "she had been fighting against Indian stereotypes all her life."