“The adaptability of racial categories to fit particular political and social alignments illuminates critical features of the idea of race in general. People do not believe in race abstractly but instead manipulate racial categories to suit contextualized objectives.
“Yet scholars seeking to understand race as a cultural construction should take care not to dismiss physical differences between people as pure figments of the imagination … There are physical differences; our collective imaginations organize these differences to make meaning of them and are constantly at work altering those meanings.”
– Nancy Shoemaker, Assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, “How Indians Got to Be Red”
“Red man” is a contemptuous term used to refer to a North American Indian. Akin to the term “redskin,” red man underwent pejoration through the 19th to early 20th centuries and in contemporary dictionaries of American English it is labeled "usually offensive,” "disparaging,” “insulting,” or "taboo.”
Although the origin of the choice of "red" to describe Native Americans in English is debated, it has become historically stereotypical of Native Americans. While related terms were used in anthropological literature as early as the 17th century, labels based on skin-color entered everyday speech around the middle of the 18th century. The “red” designation remains today.
"At the start of the eighteenth century, Indians and Europeans rarely mentioned the color of each other’s skins. By mid-century, remarks about skin color and the categorization of peoples by simple color-coded labels (red, white, black) had become commonplace."
(Nancy Shoemaker. A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America. Oxford University Press. 2006.)
Although it may be true that “redskin” was frequently used by Native Americans themselves (as a distinguishing label) when they negotiated with the French and later the Americans, the word "redskin" began to take on a negative, increasingly violent connotation.
Author L. Frank Baum, best known for his classic The Wizard of Oz, celebrated the death of Sitting Bull and the massacre at Wounded Knee with a pair of editorials calling for the extermination of all remaining Native Americans. In one of the December 1890 pieces, Baum wrote …
"With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them."
Killingly High
The latest high profile national uproar about using derogatory terms in offensive mascot names is occurring at Killingly High School in Killingly, Connecticut.
Sports teams at Killingly High have called themselves the Redmen and the Redgals for over 80 years. In recent years (2014, 2013), the opposition of the mascot name started to make some headway and get some press. At that time, the students of Killingly ran a poll and 59% of the students and 42% of teachers and staff wanted to keep the name.
The controversy remained. In 2019, a few brave, passionate students brought the issue to the Board of Education which set the process of a mascot change in motion.
After a contentious town hall meeting, the Board passed a resolution to change the mascot if local tribes requested to have it changed. (By the way, they already had done that and they did so once again.) So, the mascot was finally changed. A poll was held shortly after to decide the next mascot and 80% of the students chose Red Hawks. The school's mascot was officially the Red Hawks, at least for one season of sports.
In November of 2019, Republicans (including Jason Muscara, former VP of the CT American Guard, who announced his candidacy at that mascot name town hall meeting) won a super-majority on the Town Council and the Board of Education, running essentially a one-issue campaign – the mascot. They planned to change the high school's mascot back.
That fall, during his campaign for a seat on the school board, Muscara had faced his own controversy when reports emerged that he had served as vice president of the Connecticut chapter of the American Guard, an organization deemed a “general hate” group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Muscara said he had joined believing it was a “patriotic organization,” but left when he grew “uncomfortable” with some of its members. In the lead-up to the municipal election in November, Muscara told the Hartford Courant that the renaming of the Redmen was a result of the “radical left agenda” of town Democrats.
(Eliza Fawcett. “Killingly Board of Education votes to restore Redmen mascot previously rejected as racist symbol.” Hartford Courant. January 9, 2020.)
In December the Republicans on the Board stayed true to their campaign promise and held another town hall meeting. They invited Mark Onewolf of NAGA to speak in favor of reverting back to the Redmen mascot.
NAGA is an acronym for Native American Redskins Fans. Public records confirmed Mark Onewolf was born Mark E. Yancey in Washington D.C. He calls himself “Mark Suzuki” on online résumés. He’s passed himself off as “Mark Yan” and used that handle in comment sections wherever the name was being debated. He had a MySpace page using the name “Kram Yecnay.” Yancey/OneWolf says his family identifies as Chiricahua Apache, though that tribe is not recognized by the government. This “wolf” was a highly suspect Native representative. No matter to the Republicans.
(Ben Mathis-Lilley. “Prominent Native Supporter of Washington NFL Team Has Questionable Credentials.” Slate. October 9, 2014.)
The newly elected school board voted to ditch the Red Hawks name at a December 2019 meeting that devolved into screaming matches as residents took turns accusing each other of being communists or racists. (Not altogether foreign to board meetings across the country.)
After hearing from teachers, staff, community members and Mark Onewolf, the Board then voted to nix the Redhawks mascot. But the vote to reinstate Redmen remained a stalemate. The school officially had no mascot/name for the state championship football game.
The controversy became a distraction for the football players as plenty of parents and alumni made their feelings clear at the final championship game against Weston High School, the Hartford Courant reported. Some wore sweatshirts with slogans like “Born a Redmen, Raised a Redmen, Will Die a Redmen.” Others blamed the dispute on “snowflakes” and described “Redmen” as a “term of endearment” and “spiritual thing.”
The team lost the championship game. And afterwards, Killingly High School Athletic Director Kevin Marcoux said: “Everywhere we go, we are the laughingstock of the state.”
Then, in January, 2020, over objections from the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Nipmuc Tribal Nation along with protests from many students, teachers, and community members who expressed concerns that “Redman” was disrespectful and would make Killingly look like an intolerant, bigoted backwater, the Board of Education voted 5-4 to reinstate the “Redmen” as the high school’s mascot.
Republican members who voted in favor of reinstating the “Redmen” title told CNN that they wanted to represent the majority opinion for the town. “The people were ignored,” said newly elected school board member Jason Muscara, referencing the school’s earlier name change to Redhawks. Muscara said that images of the Redmen mascot – a man in profile, wearing a feathered headdress – are (proudly) portrayed on the sports teams’ jerseys and throughout the school.
Said fellow Republican board member Norm Ferron: “I never believed the false narrative about it being any kind of racist symbol, because no one names their school after what they detest. We don’t feel that this name is in any way offensive to any group.”
(Antonia Noori Farzan. “Getting rid of ‘Redmen’ sparked an uproar. So school officials voted to reinstate the ‘demeaning’ team name.”
The Washington Post. January 10, 2020.)
The Mashantucket Pequot tribal leadership released (another) statement:
"Although we appreciate the Board of Education's decision to establish a subcommittee to develop a Native American centered curriculum, we're disappointed in their vote to reinstate the offensive Redmen mascot. We support the sentiments shared by members of our Youth Council at yesterday's hearing, and believe the mascot doesn't honor or represent Native people and has no place in our school system. We urge the Board to rethink their decision."
On January 27. 2020, several days after the board vote, the Killingly High School National Honor Society released a statement that sadly read …
“As leaders within our school, we refuse to stand by the 'Redmen' mascot. We know it only serves to further divide our community, and reinforce the stereotypes that the world works every day to eliminate. We stand by our belief and character, that every individual deserves respect, acknowledgement and understanding.”
While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning. However, until the concept of race is abandoned entirely, people use these terms of identity to demean and to dehumanize others. The association of race with the ideologies and theories of scientific racism has led to the use of the word “race” itself becoming problematic.
“Redmen” and “Redskin” are racial terms that suggest a subspecies and a genetically differentiated population. They are words of division, not terms associated with inclusion as some would have the public believe. Teams who use these names as mascots oversimplify cultures while choosing to “play Indian.” They have little or no understanding of the deeper meaning of Native American ideology such as the use of feathers, face paint, chants, and dancing.
Richard Lapchick, director emeritus of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, wrote:
"Could you imagine people mocking African Americans in black face at a game? Yet go to a game where there is a team with an Indian name and you will see fans with war paint on their faces. Is this not the equivalent to black face?"
Whether supporters of Redman mascots are willfully malicious or dangerously naïve, the use of a racial stereotype is insulting and demeaning. Yes, there is reason to condemn the “political incorrectness” of the actions of Republican board members of Killingly High. The rights of minorities must be upheld, no matter the so-called “tradition” of employing a symbol now recognized as detrimental.
There are only eight states where Natives make up greater than 2 percent of the population: Alaska, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming. Political majorities must never dictate the minority conscious and equality in any state. Linguists, sociologists, community members, school board members, and students alike should be informed and sensitive to needed change.
In a public school, teachers must not avoid controversial subjects and pigeonhole opposition as “against tradition” and as once-revered “past standards.” Instead, teachers and parents should deliberately keep those at-issue subjects at the center of classroom instruction and engage their students productively.
In America, the problem at hand is that many educators and parents do not recognize the extent of current problems, and many lack the knowledge of race, class, and bipartisan politics to address them properly. Sensitive understandings and positive change come grudgingly, if at all. Race, whether viewed as abstraction or actuality, remains an unsolved factor in the American equation of equality. Much of this imbalance is due to conservative insensitivity – a prime example is alive and well in Killingly, Connecticut.
Alan Duda, KHS Class of '07 summed up the political controversy like this:
“The people speaking out and calling for a name change aren't 'fragile snowflakes'; they're brave. They are Native Americans standing up and refusing to be a mascot. Or they are outnumbered allies who are willing to step out of their bubbles, question their privileges, put themselves in someone else's shoes and fight for them. It's so sad to read through the endless comments from the real fragile snowflakes – the ones who are begging their high school to keep its mascot name. It's you who are clamoring for a safe space, one where no one is allowed in to confront your worldview. Full grown adults! Y'all are being weird.”
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