Indians Post University Identity Theft Of Nati

Read and write a minimum two (2) page reflection/reactive paper to the information you read in the reflect on SPORTS: Identity Theft? Using Native American Names and Images in Sports found on pages 236-237 of our textbook.

Identity Theft? Using Native American Names and Images in Sports Using stereotypes to characterize Native Americans is so common that most people don’t realize they do it. When people take Native American images and names, claim ownership of them, and then use them for team names, mascots, and logos, sports perpetuate an ideology that trivializes and distorts the diverse histories and traditions of native cultures. No other ethnic population is subject to this form of cultural identity theft. As sportswriter Jon Saraceno (2005) exclaims, “Can you imagine the reaction if any school dressed a mascot in an Afro wig and a dashiki? Or encouraged fans to show up in blackface?” (p. 10C). To understand this issue, consider this story told by the group, Concerned American Indian Parents: An American Indian student attended his school’s pep rally in preparation for a football game against a rival school. The rival school’s mascot was an American Indian. The pep rally included the burning of an Indian in effigy along with posters and banners labeled “Scalp the Indians,” “Kill the Indians,” and “Let’s burn the Indians at the stake.” The student, hurt and embarrassed, tore the banners down. His fellow students couldn’t understand his hurt and pain. This incident occurred in a public school in 1988, twenty years after the National Congress of American Indians initiated a campaign to eliminate stereotypes of “Indians” in U.S. culture. In 1970, over 3000 schools were using Native American images, names, logos, and mascots for their sport teams. Many of these changed their names and mascots when they realized that it wasn’t right to use the identities of other human beings to represent and promote themselves. However, a number of schools and a few professional teams still engage in this form of identity theft as they call themselves “Indians,” “Savages,” “Warriors,” “Chiefs,” “Braves,” “Redskins,” “Red Raiders,” and “Redmen” and have mascots that cross-dress as Indians by donning war bonnets and paint, brandishing spears and tomahawks, pounding tom-toms, intoning rhythmic chants, and mimicking religious and cultural dances. Many high schools in the United States continue to cling to ownership of “their” Indian names, logos, and mascots, despite objections from Native Americans. Some school officials, coaches, parents, and students say that their intent is to “honor their Indian,” but they put his caricatured image on their gym floors and benches where people step and sit on them—actions unlikely to be accepted when honoring culturally important historical figures, such as Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan. This [cartoon] image is used by a public high school in Colorado calling themselves the “Fightin’ Reds.” (Source: © Jay Coakley) Some schools continue to display “their Indian” on gym walls and floors, scoreboards, and products they sell for a profit. They say that they’re engaging in a “harmless” tradition that “honors” the “Indians” from whom they’ve taken images and identities. But Native page 237Americans point out that they are not honored by people who don’t listen to them or respect their cultures. What if the San Diego Padres’ mascot were a fearsome black-robed missionary who walked the sidelines swinging an 8-foot-long rosary and carrying a 9-foot-long plastic crucifix? And what if he led fans in a hip-hop version of the sacred Gregorian chant as spectators waved little crucifixes and rapped the lyrics of their chant? People would be outraged because they know the history and meaning of Christian beliefs, objects, and rituals. If more Americans knew the histories, cultural traditions, and religions of the 566 Native American tribes and nations in the United States today, would they be as likely to use Native American team names and allow naïve students to dress in costumes made of items defined as sacred in the animistic religious traditions of many Native Americans? Would they allow fans to mimic sacred chants and perform war-whooping, tomahawk-chopping cheers based on racist images from old “cowboy and Indian” movies? Most public school officials and state legislators now realize that it’s cruel and inconsiderate to misrepresent people whose ancestors were massacred, ordered off their lands at gunpoint, and confined to reservations by U.S. government agents. They also realize that romanticizing a distorted version of the past by taking the names and images of people who currently experience discrimination, poverty, and the negative effects of stereotypes is a careless act of white privilege and hypocrisy. Therefore, some states and school districts now have policies banning such practices. In 2003, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recommended that all universities using American Indian names, mascots, or logos review their practices and determine if they undermined the NCAA’s commitment to cultural diversity. In 2005, the NCAA banned the display of Native American names, logos, and mascots on uniforms and other clothing and at NCAA playoff games and championships. But NCAA officials made an exception for Florida State University (FSU), whose officials claimed they had permission from the Seminole Tribe in Florida (but not the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma) to use the Seminole name and logo image in an honorable way (Staurowsky, 2007). “Honorable” for FSU means having a white European American student paint his face, put on a headband and a colorful shirt, carry a feather-covered spear, and ride into the football stadium on a horse named Seminole. And fans can honor their “nole,” as they call “their Indian,” by buying products adorned with the painted and feathered “Seminole face.” These products include floor mats, welcome mats, stadium seats, paper plates, and other things that fans use to sit, stand, and wipe their feet on. This is a strange way to show honor, but it makes money for the university and keeps the wealthy white boosters happy, even if it mocks the courses in their history department and makes the FSU diversity policy a symbol of hypocrisy. The insensitivity of people at FSU is not an isolated case (Davis-Delano, 2007; King, 2016; Williams, 2007). For example, in 1999, a panel in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that “Redskins,” “Redskin-ettes,” and the logo of a feathered “Redskin” man as used by Washington, DC’s NFL team “disparaged” Native Americans. The panel canceled six exclusive trademarks, ending the NFL’s exclusive ownership of the “Redskins” name and logo. But in 2003, a federal district court judge overturned the panel’s ruling because Native Americans had not objected back in 1967 when all NFL trademarks were registered. Although this decision is under appeal, the NFL still controls its “Redskins”—located in the capital city of the government that broke all but 1 of over 400 treaties with Native Americans (Dorgan, 2013). This case symbolizes the history of oppression endured by Native Americans. However, in 2013, there were additional efforts to convince the owner of the Washington team to change its name, but he said he would NEVER do so. But that only increased the pressure being put on him and on the NFL, which claims to value racial and ethnic diversity (King, 2016; TheDailyCaller, 2013; Zirin 2013c, 2013d).