The Morality Of Mascots

Proponents believe tribal symbols display honor and respect towards the Native American people. They cheer that the inclusion of this iconography in the athletic arena serves to pay admiration and ongoing tribute to the identity of the Native American culture. They believe that rather than extinguishing Native American mascots as a symbolic reference for schools and sports teams, the choice to sensitively use such imagery should be without sanction.

To begin with, it is racist and derogatory to use Native Americans as mascots. One town in Montana, Ronan, calls its sports teams the “Chiefs” and the “Maidens”. In several Native American cultures, maidens are considered less than or lower than women. Also, the mascots of other schools are often animals. Using Native

Chief Wahoo is a derogatory and racist figure that indirectly represents Native Americans. With Chief Wahoo’s blood-red skin, swollen cheeks, triangular eyes, a bulbous nose, an expansive grin and a single feather protruding from the back of his head. There is no reason to suspect that Chief Wahoo is less racist than other logos that represents Native Americans that are considered racist. As Lindsay Lowe explains in her article, “Honor or Insult?” She says that “American Indian mascots often look the same: They wear paint on their faces and carry weapons called tomahawks. Many American Indians say these portrayals promote negative stereotypes by making them seem violent or like cartoon characters,” explaining that these logos not only promote stereotypes towards Native Americans, as well as insulting Native Americans saying that they all look the same. Although people say that Chief Wahoo is just a harmless cartoon, some people

Not all controversial mascots are related to the American Indians. The University of California at Santa Barbara is cheered on by Olé the Gaucho, referring to Latinos from South America. The name is not as offensive, possibly because it is a specific character that happens to be

Dating back several hundreds of years ago, Native Americans have been deprived, dehumanized, and demoralized ever since Christopher Columbus and his men came and seized the land from the Indigenous Peoples. There have been many tactics that have been used to strip the dignity of the Indigenous Peoples, but the use of an American Indian sports mascot is one tactic that has been in effect since 1932. There are some supporters of these various American Indian sports mascots such as Dan Snyder, the current team owner of the Washington Redskins, that do not feel that these sports mascots have any negative connotations. Dan Snyder may have had a few points when he wrote his letter, but he fails to realize that the American Indian Sports Mascots are

The debate about whether or not the Washington Redskins should change their name has been a topic for a long time. Some Native Americans have often considered the name a racial slur and think that the league should get rid of the name as it doesn’t represent Native Americans in the best way possible. In 1937 the Redskins moved to Washington and decided to retain the name even though it had faced backlash then. Since then the team has over time shown more caution on using slogans that may disrespect Native Americans. Some slogans they did use include “On the Warpath, with a cartoon drawing of an angry Indian, and another called “Teepee Talk, featuring a clip-art Indian sticking his head out of a tepee” (Shapira, 2016, Para.5). There will always be a debate if the team should get rid of its name but for right now Washington’s football teams name is the Redskins.

Thus, it seems odd to suggest that naming a team after an Indian tribe is a calculated insult. A team or school embraces a mascot that represents the favorable traits and characteristics of its members. Such is the case with the Florida State Seminoles, who are named after a tribe with its origin in that southern state. The Seminole tribe optimistically favored the use of the Indian mascot and even facilitated the design of authentic dress that is proudly worn at sporting and community events. Similar to the Seminoles, the University of Illinois preserved their mascot, Chief Illiniwek, for almost 80 years. Named after the indigenous Illiniwek tribe, the Chief was a customary sideline figure at football and basketball games until 2007 when the NCAA forced the University of Illinois to remove this historic mascot. Unfortunately, the collegiate governing body failed to realize what this symbol meant to the collegiate Illinois community. Illini students were polled regarding the action and a majority disapproved of the decision. Sixty-nine percent of the students voted to keep Chief Illiniwek as their mascot. (Haugh). These students believed that removing Chief Illiniwek as the University of Illinois’ mascot would diminish the passion associated with their university. After the forceful removal of the Native American mascot by the NCAA, the students felt

All over the world people use mascots to represent something. I think using Indian mascots is not a big issue. Those mascots have been used to represent their power and strength. I couldn’t see a single element in using mascot can be disgraceful to somebody’s culture. Actually in my view it’s the best way of paying homage to somebody. It’s really a surprising that Indian Native organizations are also becoming sensitive about this issue. I have never come across a single person who ever describe that this mascot means something bad about something. Mascots always used to represent qualities of different things. What had happened with them century ago that was their fault. In my view Indians didn’t try to be part of new advancement which British brought with them and that was their fault. Even now if any nation is technically or by any means is strong or advance, that will certainly rule the others, if others want to survive they have to mold themselves with the new advancements. That was really great that Indian’s were proud of their culture that they knew how to live with nature and they tried to live with that. But Like Amash people here they are strongly committed to their customs and culture but they know if they won’t mold some of their living customs then there will be very difficult for them to survive, this is was the point that Indians didn’t realize at that moment. Indian instead of adopting themselves with new advancement they have

     Many people do not consider themselves supporting Native American mascots that depict them in a bad manner. But when people walk around with a Atlanta Braves shirt on with a Indian with a tomahawk in his hand, it is degrading to the Indians. It is stereotyping them. School mascots and Sports team’s mascots are named after groups of people for no reason known. Notre Dame was founded by Irish Catholics, but their sports team was named the Fighting Irish. The name Fighting Irish has nothing to do with the Irish Catholics, it depicts them in a wrong way.(Price, 3). Team names can be changed to similar names that do not depict certain groups of people. Like the Redskins can be called the Red Hawks or the

and mascot (99; pt.3). These schools use logos of people, animals, and cartoon characters of the

culture today, with the Redskins not being the only team that uses a tribal Native American name and mascot to represent their sports team (Grose, 695). The other team I am referring to is University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Chief Illinewek. Both the Redskins and Chief Illinewek exemplify disrespect to the Native American culture because they imitate their ceremonial dances and traditional clothing in a mocking manner. The traditional dances in the Native American culture are very sincere and dear to the people. The Native American culture is not something to be imitated for U.S sports entertainment especially because it is hurting an entire race of people, who have taken an action to put an end to the mockery of their

To start the article, Shakley tells the audience a story about the time he came home with a Cleveland Indians hat with the famous Chief Wahoo logo (The Cleveland Indians mascot is Chief Wahoo and is one of the most controversial mascots in American sports). This hat was later thrown in the trash by his mother (that had been fighting against Native American stereotypes her whole life), who Shakley describes as having “the look of betrayal”. Shakley uses strong words to describe his negative opinion on Native American mascots by stating that the North Dakota Fighting Sioux provoked a feeling in him that was embarrassed and angry. Shakley described it as “It was an irritant, like a long forgotten piece of shrapnel working its way to

The American Psychological Association had found that using representation of the mascots “undermines the educational experiences of members of all communities- especially those who have had little or no contact with Indigenous peoples” (APA). When people view a culture being paraded as a mascot, it can become their singular view and knowledge on the ethnic group. There is nothing to stop the formulation of what students know about Native Americans when there are few natives around. With the allowance of mascots to represent Native American in a way as they do now, wearing headdresses or war paint and using “peace pipes” has become a trend and something “cool” to do. Headdresses are traditionally a part of the Plains tribes and are considered sacred. Only revered warriors or significant people could wear war bonnets or headdresses. Feathers, especially eagle feathers, are very sacred to Native Americans. These appropriations continue to be a negative and demeaning aspect of using Native Americans as

So it can stand out. They would be incourged to save their mascot by donating, and be proud of it.

Many races are unjustly victimized, but Native American cultures are more misunderstood and degraded than any other race. College and high school mascots sometimes depict images of Native Americans and have names loosely based on Native American descent, but these are often not based on actual Native American history, so instead of honoring Native Americans, they are being ridiculed. According to the article Warriors Survive Attack, by Cathy Murillo (2009) some “members of the Carpentaria community defended Native American mascot icons as honoring Chumash tradition and the spirit of American Indian Warriors in U.S. history and others claimed that the images were racist stereotypes” (Murillo, 2009). If people do not attempt to understand