Offensive Mascots Research Paper

Mascot is a popular Sydney suburb with a friendly community spirit. That’s how its residents describe this quiet, friendly suburb. It has a diverse culture and population, it’s close to Sydney and is surrounded by other great suburbs like Surry Hills, Eastgardens, Kingsford, Marrickville, Newtown, and Alexandria. It’s close to the airport, but unlike the other suburbs around it where planes frequently fly in and out, the airplane noise in Mascot is minimal.

The Change the Mascot campaign has made a website for people to see how big of topic this is to them. Also, on their website they’ve put out many other Native American tribes that support the changing of the name, ways to take action and even ways to contact them. They have a tab that shows the history of progress that shows that many team’s names and mascots have been changed from a racial Native American term to a more laid back name or mascot. They believe that the name and mascot should and will be changed to create more of non-racial effect among the Washington Redskins fans and community. Also, the Change the Mascot organization has put together a way to for non-Native American people to show their support by using the tag #ProudToBe Standing With #NotYourMascot on social media. Many native american tribes have actually sent out letters to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about changing the Washington Redskins name, logo and mascot. This is a national movement of Americans across the country, both Native and non-Native alike, who are standing against racism and strongly encouraging a

One reading from Fivethirtyeight debates the argument to change the Native American mascot names. This is a valid argument because for example the name redskins, the name of the NFL football team located in Washington D.C, can be seen and viewed as disparaging to native americans. Naming teams and especially professional teams after native american tribes can become very controversial. (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-2128-native-american-mascots-people-arent-talking-about/)

Why is a school mascot important to students ? Mascots are found in schools, sports and businesses and may date back a very long time. The word Mascot means “ A person, animal, or object believed to bring good luck, especially one kept as the symbol of an organization to illustrate a sports team. A mascot symbolizes courage, strength, speed and leadership. A Mascot is any person, animal, thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity such as a school.

Can you imagine how hurtful and offensive it would be to feel discriminating? Many people acknowledge that mascots are used as a symbolic identification in many schools and sports teams of all sorts. For many years, people from the Native American Culture have encountered inappropriate displays of Indian names and mascots in sports. It is also known that most people have aroused conflict because of many misinterpretations over certain mascots that have been used by well-known and popular sports team. In the essay, “Indian Mascots–You’re Out” Jack Shakely introduces the reader with some background information of his first experience he had where Indians were portrayed as a sports team’s mascot, in a way that can offend someone. Shakely’s

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,

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,

Others say that the logos should be taken down because they are offensive to some Native Americans. “Although school names and other symbols evoke strong emotions of solidarity among followers, there is also a potential dark side to their use. The symbols may dismiss, differentiate, demean, and trivialize marginalized groups such as African-Americans, Native Americans, and women”(Kelly). The names, mascots, logos, and flags chosen may be derogatory to some groups. In reality, the mascots and symbols are a sense of pride and spirit for students and their schools.

After reading this article I believe that it is not racist for a school team to keep their Indian mascots. A school has its right to keep a name that they have had for years. I believe that every team has their name for a reason. That they have taken it too far with the racist stuff. No one is being racist these schools have had their Indian mascots and their Indian names for years and they have absolutely no right to now come out and say these schools are being “racist” towards the tribes. I don’t believe they have any right to tell a team or force a team to stop using a mascot that they have had for years. The Redskins first roster included 4 Native American players in 1933. They have had their name for more the 40 years there is no right

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines mascot as, “a person, animal, or object used as a symbol to represent a group (such as a sports team) and to bring good luck.” Hopeful sports teams around the United States rely on their mascots to bring in positive energy as motivation to help win the game. The mascot often serves as the face of a team, and acts to define the team’s character to their opponents. The mascots represent the community that the team belongs to, and that is a big role. When a mascot is offensive or isolates a particular group of people, the mascot can also bring negative attention to the team. The negative publicity will often result in a mascot change.

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

To begin with, the Washington’s team needs to change their name because it is offensive to those people. The author of a sports article wrote by Potenza, a ESPN sports writer, said “ many native American groups ,lawmakers and fans are pressuring them to change their name(Potenza 1).” The evidence shows that many other people besides the natives agree that they need to change the name to something less offensive. A native American said that “ to the fans we exist as a warrior culture(Potenza1)”. Cynthia, the native, says this about the Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop.so not only is it

     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

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,

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