The deep and disturbing story of the impact of sports teams with Native American mascots

Monday ‘, Washington announced NFL team, DC, and changing his name to withdraw in its logo. Although the news came just 10 days after the team announced a “thorough review” of its name, follows years of criticism of a name as a denigration of Native Americans has been widely recognized. In 2013, Dan Snyder, the team’s owner, had promised to keep the name as it was, and infected votes until today, despite the urging of activists and sportscasters of Native Americans and the decisions of the latching means by the term. “Today we announce the Redskins name and logo after the conclusion of this review to retire,” the team said in a statement. “Dan Snyder and coach Rivera closely a new name and a design approach to develop to improve the reputation of our proud, tradition-rich franchises and inspire our sponsors, fans and the community for the next 100 years.” But while the situation of the Washington team endured to cause an insult not just a cliché, the team has never been just more than 2,000 high schools natives use American images Mascot DB, and that broader context, it has also been criticized by activists. is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a member of the faculty at Brown University American Studies and Ethnic Studies Department, who is also the author of the blog middle nut and a co-host of all my relations Podcast – – Adrienne Keene spoke time about the history of native American mascots and images. TIME: is to change the thrust of the name of Washington’s NFL team and the logo for many decades underway. Because it happened the change now? KEENE: I think what we are seeing the culmination of generations and decades of work by indigenous activists, academics and members of the community, along with the incredible dynamics and for the time being on the issue of black life to organize. This combination has created the final push we needed twist to the abyss and finally to convince the team to change the name. Many US sports teams have mascots of Native Americans. Because this idea was attractive, as in the world of sport in the first place? This idea of ​​the natives as a mascot or the idea of ​​”playing Indian” and dress like a local person is something the founding of what is, is now known as the United States. Philip Deloria, who wrote Indian games, talks about this phenomenon as something that the early colonists and settlers sought-identity that was different in this country and this place because they are not trying to be British. , Dress Even in the Boston Tea Party or some of these early events in our history the people of the United States as the native people in those moments, so this idea is deeply tied to this place and it’s really hard to unravel, in terms of people who want to identify the land they occupy, and natives with ideas of being wild and free and unrestrained by social limits of modern society. This is something that people really hold on tight, because they see it as central to their identity if they knowingly or not think. As the use has spread these mascots and become ubiquitous to the point where we see them in country clubs, public schools and everyday products? The American fascination with people-not even native “Indians”, not Native Americans as these very stereotyped, abstract idea is that leads some to products and team sports, and only omnipresent. The National Museum of the American Indian in D. C. had an exhibition really incredible that showed the large number of places that these stereotypes emerge. And it was from the beginning. Some of the first images of America were carvings of people fantasies of American Indians, and some of the first universities and colleges in the United States were established as places to educate and assimilate Native youth, so places like Dartmouth and William and Mary … their mascot were Indians, because the origin of their institution. These ideas are so difficult to untangle from the history of our country, but it is to be truly to be this fascination with what was local. not only improve, but in fact is more stereotypes in terms of what mother is written false representations like these mascots and names. How does it work? The way we think about sports and competition, especially nourishes the idea of ​​wild and warrior stereotype. get the same images on all the goods are reproduced, that go along with advertising and products with the team name. This is why stereotypes are even more deeply rooted in American culture. Get your fix history in one place: subscribe to the weekly newsletter TIME sports history, what the impact of this false information? The images are harmful, not only because the natives and paint us misrepresent in stereotypical ways, but there are actually empirical research showing these images in Native youth are harmful. Stephanie Fryberg, which is an incredible scholar, the first empirical study of the psychological consequences of a professional sports team American Indian mascots and the way he saw that the images affected the self-esteem and the value of the community and a couple of other pending measures for Aboriginal youth. And in these circumstances even for images that we continue as “good” images as Pocahontas, even self-esteem measures significantly. What was even more interesting to me, and it is even more dangerous in a way that the self-esteem of white subjects in another series of studies has increased the impact of American Indian mascots examined European Americans. Dan Snyder, who DC ,, owner of the team, said that the name stands for “the honor, respect and pride.” What does that mean your search to this idea and what do we tell this story? I would be honored as Mother person and respected if our contracts honored if our sovereignty was recognized when our country into indigenous hands were withdrawn. This is the kind of thing that honor me as a person mother, the stereotypical image combined with an expression not racist. I think what happens is that when local teenagers or native Looking at these images, even if they are not wild-eyed, grinning caricature, limits the possibilities of what they see for themselves and reflects what the larger society thinks of them as a person’s mother. So no it matters if it’s an image “honorable” or representation, merely to be faced. It ‘still commonplace, and it is problematic as before. To make sense of this name change, what do you think needs to happen next? It must be a movement to use the image and name in all sectors to eliminate in the future. I went as planned at Stanford University, and we have an Indian mascot until 1970, and has been changed due to maternity student activism on campus. One thing I always liked about the university is that of the time, said that unilateral change occurs, which is sanctioned is no longer the use of Indian mascots. And so, when things would gush or people would try to revive it, the administration would come and say, “No, we do not use anymore.” And it is to switch the type of leadership that the needs because the fans do not make it easy to leave out wrong. There has to be some kind of one-sided explanation of why this change was made to recognize the image of the damage, instead of framing as only one type of economical answer to sponsors. I think it must be in all other professional sports, college sports, high school sports and sports in basic schools the beginning of a chain reaction using the Indian mascot. The wide aggregated conversation must bind to the continuing challenges that Indian communities are facing and how they contribute to the images. I not only want to talk about representations for the rest of my life and career. I want to talk about our land and water rights, our rights treaties, for education in our communities, the nation-building of all these things, and I see these images as a barrier to this. So, I hope that the broader conversation just try to change it and what is to demolish the next images. Given that the team in question, DC, -based, that the appointment of the relationship between politics and says indigenous cultures? C. D. If you are, you are surrounded by this and the team name. E ‘on the packaging of chips in the grocery store, is on IT absorbent paper packages on posters, is on the side of the car, it’s everywhere. DC is where our legislators live, work and interact, and so I always think about the fact that the person who vote will be a law on indigenous water rights or to stop a pipeline or whatever it is, I do not think the natives as living, vibrant, contemporary indigenous communities, we, think about this bag of potato chips on. Some people have argued that the word is not really an eyesore. Why do you think there is a debate this environment? It is always frustrating for me, because there really is not much debate among the natives that the word is a shame themselves, and I have never seen used to refer to contemporary Native person in a positive way. There is no way that I know where the team name and called on the opposition to us R words and said he spoke “Diese, R-Wort’wirklich want to change the name,” or “there are groups’ R words fight the mascot. “E ‘to find an intrinsic that it is a misnomer to refer to indigenous people. For me as an opinion and mother as a person, I’m not super about whether or not there is a racial insult defined dictionary or where previously used. I know how to use it today, and I know how it feels, in e-mail or in the comments on the blog called. The Navajo Nation responded to the DC team announcement and said that the team “Talkers Code” as a way to rename could honor “Navajo Code Talkers and win their sacred language to help other indigenous peoples, World War II” and being “on the way its reputation and correction of false statements of historical indigenous peoples to recover.” what impact do you think this could have? My preference, again as an indigenous person is to move from each parent images ever gone. What we see is very often with Indian mascots necessarily damage the team by the fans, not yourself is, it is a lot of times the damage of opposing teams fans. With schools that do this, students come to their opponents campus, and make the characters, scalp Indians or say, ‘Indian Hey, ready to go at a trail of round tears two’, and very damaging others and derogatory statement . As competition takes place in the sport for good or bad, that. You have pride in your team and try to cut or tear, so that the thought of the enemy, which makes this role Navajo Code Talkers scared me. I think this is something you decide for the Navajo people, but I think the damage the opponents are something to think in rebranding as honorable, realistic or important mother mascot.
Picture copyright by John McDonnell The Washington Post via Getty Images