Indian Mascots and Logos
A growing controversy in recent years has arisen around the use and abuse of Native American team mascots. The Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, Kansas City Chiefs, Florida State Seminoles, and so forth -- these are just a few of the images and names popularly associated with Native Americans that are still used as mascots by professional sports teams, dozens of universities, and countless high schools. This practice, a troubling legacy of Native -- Euro-American relations in the United States, has sparked heated debates and intense protests that continue to escalate. These caricatures and stereotypes are really intended as prisons of image. Inside each desperately grinning Indian or each stoic redskin brave or Chief Illiniwek, there is someone we know. If you look hard at these symbols and don't panic, you begin to see the eyes and then the heart of these despised relatives of ours -- who have been forced to lock their spirits away from themselves and from us. I see our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers captured and forced into images they did not devise -- doing hard time for all of us. We can liberate them by understanding them and free ourselves. (Walker)
To the states of New Mexico and Oklahoma, we are tourist attractions. "People have a real longing for connection to place. These statements, and even the simple existence of Indian mascots is obviously offensive, or there would be no debate. It was hard, but when I started researching, I realized that there are so many that most Americans are well familiar with, it's just that we are so used to them, we sometimes don't even think of the fact that they are representing Indians. However, the issue remains a hotly contested one. To anthropologists, objects of study and curiosity. Professional sports teams, college sports teams, and high schools have used and abused various Native American images as team mascots. But she finally decided that even "benign" Indian mascots obscure the truth of Indian life today. To New Agers, we are spiritual giants. Just how did we get here, allegedly paying homage to men and women we all but exterminated, despite protests against the usurpation of native culture? This is a question that Carol Spindel wrestles with in her book, Dancing at Halftime: Sports and the Controversy over American Indian Mascots. She saw the Chief Illiniwek mascot being criticized by others because it was a fictional character, but being a rider, she was accustomed to using fictional characters, and it didn't really bother her. Spindel teaches creative non-fiction at the University of Illinois, a major player in the continuing debate over the questionably legitimate use of Native American images in sports. From athletics to tourism, American Indians are things - things to be examined, sold, entertained by - thus, never to be full-fledged human beings. Well, if they think very seriously about how we acquired this land, they're caught in a tangle of ambivalence.
Common topics in this essay:
Chief Illiniwek,
American Indians,
Native American,
Washington Post,
Native Americans,
Rock Illini,
Iroquois Illinois,
University Mascot/Logo,
Fox Iroquois,
Kansas Oklahoma,
native american,
chief illiniwek,
native americans,
sports teams,
team mascots,
washington redskins,
american indians,
indian mascots,
native american mascots,
american mascots,
american mascots controversy,
history illinois,
history illinois tribe,
professional sports teams,
native american images,
|
Acceptance Essays
