The Mascot Issue: Decapitating the Indian Image

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The Mascot IssueDecapitating the Indian Image
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How did FN People get turned into Sports logos
and What do these logos signify?

• Book The Last of the Mohicans
• James Fenimore Cooper, 1826
• During French Indian War
• Painted Image Indians Ignoble Savages
• (attack women / children)
• Sole-less beings (Christianity)
• Violent Sports Football / hockey
  (also (also
  basketball/baseball)
• 8 of top 10 college sports teams have animal
  nicknames
• Other 2 Warriors and Indians
• Degrades Indians ? makes them appear as less than
  human

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Discourses Represented Why were these images
invented?

• Icons/pictures not representative of
  people/cultures
• Offensive caricatures
• Claimed to honor FN people
• Created by population that almost obliterated
  them
• Used to belittle culture Create stereotypes
• Would a German soccer team honoring holocaust
  survivors by naming soccer team The Fighting
  Jews be appropriate?

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UND Fighting Sioux

• Sioux Snake (Lakota/Dakota tribes)
• Sioux Never asked for this
• honor
• Heated rivalry with
• NDSU Bison's
• Reasons for name change
• Sioux are a good exterminating agent for Bison
• Sioux are warlike, of fine physique and bearing
• The word Sioux is easily rhymed for yells and
  songs

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Cleveland Indians

• Well have the Indians on the warpath all the
  time, eager for scalps to dangle at their belts
• - Cleveland Sportswriter, 1915
• Honor Louis Sockalexis
• Quit due to racial
• discrimination
• Died as an alcoholic beggar
• Is Chief Wahoo an accurate depiction?

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Movie Major League Baseball

• Scene 9th inning of last game
• Thousands of white people dressed
• in Indian garb
• Indians facing Yankees colonial
• narrative
• Indians win well after fact they are
• raped/pillaged by western culture
• Ultimate act of appropriation
• Metaphor Cant even win own
• battles against Yankees
• ? White people had to do it for them

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Not simply Mascots/Logos Also Racist Practices

• FSU Seminoles Home Games
• Chief Osceola rides onto field
• Plants fiery spear into turf
• Before battle
• Once you go past this line you declare war
• On Campus Unconquered statue of
• Chief Osceola
• Both images of savagery
• ?FN people stuck in the past
• Like wild beasts to be conquered

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Similarities between Logos

• All Decapitated Chiefs or Images of Violent
  Weapons

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Good Indian MascotsHow do they get selected and
are they really good?

• 2010 Olympics Winter logo
• Ilaanaq the Innunguaq
• Ilaanaq Inuktitut word
• for friend
• Inuits not asked permission
• to use knowledge/ name for logo
• Olympic committee benefits off their beliefs and
  the Inuits see none of the profits

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Who Profits from these logos?

• James Sinclair
• Not the Indians themselves
• Major Indian territory
• Make money by keeping Indians depressed
• Influences ways land titles are claimed
• Assists in continuing conquering and
  dispossession of Indigenous people

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Effects on Youth

• All children harmed by mascots (not just native
  children)
• Once stereotype is established, very difficult
  for students to learn about present day Indians
  afterwards
• Many children believe that Indians have
• been killed off long time ago and thats why
• their school logo is an Indian to be
• remembered
• . Crucial for educators to teach school
• age children about sports team logos

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How are FN People responding to the Mascot Issue?

• Mostly through writing
• Claimed offensive because
• Reinforces cultural stereotypes
• Perpetuates violent war-like icons
• Denigrates native spirituality
• Created uproar in NCAA
• 18 teams banned from post season competition in
  2005 due to logos/nicknames considered hostile
  or abusive

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Resistance movement

• Vernon Bellecourt "We are saying - start playing
  football and stop playing Indian. Stop this
  dehumanizing, degrading, and despicable
  exploitation of our culture and spiritual life."
• Clyde Bellecourt, National Director, AIM "We
  don't want to be mascots for America's fun and
  games."
• Mike Wicks "We need to educate the educators.
  Show them the harm that is being done to all
  children.
• Charlene Teters, Spokane This war, no longer on
  battlefields is now being fought in the
  courtrooms, corporation boardrooms, and
  classrooms over the appropriation of Native
  American names, spiritual and cultural symbols by
  professional sports, Hollywood, schools, and
  universities. The issue for us is the right to
  self identification and self determination this
  is the fight of the National Coalition on Racism
  in Sports and the Media.

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Conclusion

• James Sinclair
• We must take it upon ourselves to educate
  people, especially the youth, about how much harm
  is being done to the Native community through
  exploitation and false representation of our
  people. It is time to speak up, through our
  actions and through literature so that one day,
  First Nations People will be recognized as equal
  beings with the rest of our society