Yesterday I wrote about a local school district's use of “Indian” as a mascot and the need to address the Indigenous view of such a practice. Many people simply objected to changing the mascot because of the history of its use and because of (my) over-sensitivity to the issue. I found this very interesting and, frankly, indicative of the manner in which a majority race disregards minorities when faced with reasoned opposition.
I believe this attitude is generated in part by mainstream America's ignorance in regards to modern American Indians. Their regard for native cultures and ways of life matters little when something opposes their cultivated constructs. In this case, the ignorance is partially due to the appropriation practiced extensively throughout the United States from the colonial period up through the present day.
The American majority's assumption is based on a white-centric view of American Indian cultures and does not take into account cultural factors that may cause mascots to be seen as offensive. They defend continued use of Native mascots as part of a rightful heritage of white America, and evidently believe that the use of American Indian mascots is not something in which Indigenous America should have any say.
The logic goes that as the Native peoples are dying out, the only way to honor and preserve their cultures is for white culture to assimilate them. This, fueled in part by the perceived in-authenticity of modern American Indians, has resulted in the incredible amount of unwarranted appropriation of indigenous cultures.
Some defend the use of Indian mascots as honored tradition – an interesting argument for supporting largely negative and distorted patterns that continues to proliferate prejudice from the past. The White majority sees any change as an attack on “their” tradition of using the races of others. It seems they deny all obligations of sensitivity to living Natives because “their” view of history – including all traditions, customs, symbols … even beliefs – must not be questioned. This reeks of fragility.
In a nutshell, the majority believes using an Indian
mascot is positive, inoffensive, and justified. “That's the way we
have done it and that's the way we see it. To the victors go the
spoils and the use of the mascot is the rightful heritage of White
America. Any considerations of its use being demeaning, damaging, or
symptomatic of racism be damned.”
The view is basically grounded in a belief
that American Indians have nothing to complain about, and they should
just accept the use of mascots. Period.
(Carol Huben. “The American Indian Mascot.” A Capstone
Manuscript Experience.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=chc_theses.
May 03, 2011.)
Indian mascots are caricatured symbols that stereotype Native Americans. If schools and teams mean to honor Natives as honorable, brave, and courageous, the caricatures fail miserably. Most depictions are constructs of the dominant white culture and inaccurate representations of Natives.
Here’s the reality about stereotypes: they contribute to a dysfunctional class system. When we think about other people, particularly people who are a different race from us, we often have a harder time understanding that complexity. So we put people into categories and thus – stereotypes are formed. For example, if one has never worked with a person of color and has repeatedly been taught that people of color are lazy, it’s easy to generalize that assumption to all people of color. It takes many experiences with diverse populations to challenge stereotypes.
Stereotypes are overly broad and so often not representative of a specific locality. One must consider that here are 574 federally recognized Native American tribes in the U.S., including 229 in Alaska. However, no Indian reservations are located in my state of Ohio, and no federally recognized Indian tribes exist in Ohio. We have almost no contact present-day contact with Natives here.
Most Native Americans were forced to leave Ohio during the Indian Removals of the 1800’s. Among the historic Indian Tribes occupying or claiming land in Ohio were the Shawnee Tribe, the Ojibwa Tribe (also called the Chippewa Tribe), the Delaware Tribe, the Wyandot Tribe, the Eel River Tribe, the Kaskaskia Tribe, the Iroquois Tribe, the Miami Tribe, the Munsee Tribe, the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe, the Ottawa Tribe.
Which “Indian” are we honoring with a mascot? Is it a specific tribe? Usually, no consideration is given. It's like saying Quakers, Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Amish, and all other Protestant religious sects have the same beliefs and image.
When an Indian mascot is used, the depiction very often includes the wrong clothing, wrong physical appearance, and wrong cultural beliefs. War chants, war drums, tomahawks, tepees, leather-fringed pants, and other Hollywood-inspired features pervade the image. Seldom is accuracy and specificity used. This is blatant cultural appropriation, and the fact that it goes unrecognized is dangerous and unacceptable.
With an extremely limited understanding of Native American culture, the White majority routinely denies Native identity and accurate connection to their rightful heritage. Without the ability to legally define their groups, tribes are constantly faced with the threat of dissolution by the United States government. There is an equally great threat to tribal existence when the ability to define themselves socially and culturally is denied them.
It's Stupid To Change?
Mainstream America has a distinct tendency to pay little or no attention to the viewpoints of other cultures. It often appropriates what it wishes – nothing more – and it more often allows assimilation under a ruling majority viewpoint. In truth, this does not honor diversity: it seeks to eliminate it. And, we all know this is the true history of the White majority's attitude toward the Native American. The genocide of indigenous people in North America proceeded along different tracks, each defined by the policies of the colonial power pursuing it. Who can deny little attempt was made to preserve native identity?
Like all forms of racism, fighting against prejudice requires more that “being against” practices that discriminate against Native Americans. It requires that one be anti-racist. Being anti-racist requires a person to both identify and actively oppose racism. The goal of anti-racism is to challenge racism and actively change the policies, behaviors, and beliefs that perpetuate racist ideas and actions. It is rooted in action and taking steps to eliminate racism at the individual, institutional, and structural levels.
No
matter where you stand on the issue of Indian mascots, I'm relatively
sure you can identify the horrible, deadly racism perpetrated against
American natives. People often mistakenly believe that simply being
“not racist” is enough to eliminate racial discrimination. The
problem with this perspective is that White people are often unaware
of their own unconscious biases. People often don’t fully
understand the institutional and structural issues that uphold White
supremacy and contribute to racist behaviors, attitudes, and
policies.
With systemic racism is all around us. We are born into it. It is deeply embedded in our culture and our communities including our schools, the justice system, the government, and hospitals. It is so pervasive that people often don't even notice how policies, institutions, and systems disproportionately favor some while disadvantaging others.
Another problem is that research has found that people who believe that they are not racist are often much more prejudiced than they think they are. One study found that people who described themselves as believing strongly in racial equality tended to have significant implicit biases.
Discrimination against Native Americans is the longest held racism in the United States. Microaggressive themes still experienced by Native Americans include the following:
1. “Lazy and Undeserving of Assistance"
2. “Primitive”
3. “Prone to Alcoholism
4. "Uneducated and Unable"
I'll end with this idea: racism can be passive. No matter how you feel about the issue of Indian mascots, you likely are not one of the very small minority that speaks from ancestry and true experience. When you think that changing mascots is just “stupid” or “against tradition,” you are likely expressing your own passive racism from deep within, planted there through a distorted history and remaining as a subversive force for future decisions.
It operates like this:
I only care about you because you are x race.
I care about you because you are x race, until you utter something to which I disagree.
You are x race, you are supposed to think this way.
A Mighty Pulverizing Machine
By Laura Da'
To each orphaned child—so long as you remain close enough to walk to
your living kin you will dance, feast, feel community in food. This cannot stand. Eighty acres allotted.
To each head of household—so long as you remember your tribal words
for village you will recollect that the grasses still grow and the rivers still flow. So long as you teach your children these words they will remember as well. This we cannot allow. One hundred and sixty acres allotted.
To each elder unable to till or hunt—so long as your old and injurious habits sing out over the drum or flicker near the fire you cripple our reward. We seek to hasten your end. Eighty acres allotted.
To each widowed wife—so
long as you can make your mark, your land
To each full blood—so long as you have an open hand, we shall fill it with a broken ploughshare. One hundred and sixty acres allotted.
To each half blood, each quarter strain—so long as you yearn for the broken ploughshare, you will be provided a spade honed to razor in its place.
When every acre of your allotment has been leased or sold, you will turn it on yourself. From that date begins our real and permanent progress.
"A Mighty Pulverizing Machine" from Tributaries by Laura Da’. Member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe Copyright © 2018 by Laura Da’. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.
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