Insensitive school mascot names - Is okay to use Indian?

Am I being to sensitive? It bothers me that one of the local schools still uses it as a nickname.

By a vote of 5-4, the School Board decided to stay with the nickname. For almost two hours alumni, teachers, students, and Native American task force members expressed an opinion on the issue to the school board.

The Mosinee School District is celebrating their hundred year anniversary, and with a very close vote the Indian nickname will continue to be a part of the school's identity. One person argued if a vote was taken 90 percent of people in Mosinee would vote to keep the name.

"It's part of the school's tradition. I feel it's not being used in a derogatory manner towards the Indians, it's just a name,

http://www.wsaw.com/home/headlines/2349161.html

The above article is from 2006 but the issue has again come to the forefront because the students at the school had a day of silence to support those that are harassed at school. The local paper then challenged them to go further and do something about their mascot.

Editorial: Silence great, but next step is some action

But Mosinee High School's halls were a little quieter than normal Tuesday as students there took part in a Day of Silence sponsored by the Diversity Club.
...
There's no better place for such a protest than Mosinee, one of the handful of school systems in Wisconsin that persists in using a race-based nickname for its sports teams.

Bullying and homophobia have gotten plenty of attention in recent months and years as links between overt abuse of kids and violence in schools have been researched and identified.

But there's such a thing as covert abuse, too. Coming to school every day with the word "Indians" stitched on your sweatshirt qualifies.

http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080508/WDH06/805080351

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll see that there's a place for comments and they're are some pretty interesting (as in nasty) ones.

and no, I am not kidding.

http://www.robotwisdom.com/issues/whities.html

Go Whities!!



:hi:

This was decide years ago without input from the Native Americans. They have been saying for years they don't like it and they've been repeatedly told too bad we like it.

read the link Maddie McCall provided.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Whites

I have bought several of their tees to support their scholarship fund.

It's not just the word "Indians" that is offensive...it's the caricature mascot that is seen as offensive.

..... And that the offensive Cleveland Indians mascot "Chief Wahoo" and the Washington "Redskins" persist to this day is an absolute outrage.

There are lots of NA who object to this sort of thing. But I do know that the Seminole tribe in FL has a deal with a FL college that uses their name for one or more of their sports teams. Because the Seminole people agreed to it, I don't have a problem with that. But I think that's a rare situation.

First off, I'm not a member of any tribe. 100% European import. So my opinion is just that - pure opinion.

But I totally agree, if there is a local tribe who approves of the nickname - AND any associated things like mascots, cheers, etc. - then it should be A-OK. The horribly racist icons like what the Cleveland Indians use need to go.

Democracy is rarely a sound basis for ethical choices.

and when they attempt to bring it up they are rebuffed, because their opinion doesn't matter.

We have enough Indian students at my university to have several cricket teams.

:shrug:

all Native Americans and to all Washingtonians.

is known as the Alvarado Indians. I don't get the sense that it's controversial for them but I'm sure there are some that don't like it. However, there is and has been intense pride and rabid support of the Alvarado Indians by their fans, me included.

I've never understood why people have a problem with it. Maybe because no one has explained it to me. (and yes, I'm aware of the founding of this country and the massacre that faced Native Americans at that time)

Is that offensive also?

like Seminoles, Aztecs, etc., because I don't think they're any worse than say Vikings, Yankess, or any other regional human mascot name. It's the stereotypical imagery and incorrect or racist names that bug me (like Braves, Redskins or Indians).

There's a way to use Native American mascot names that can be respectable; but on the other hand, there's Chief Wahoo and the Tomahawk Chop.

Sort of a Colbert type of action. :)

I am not making this up.


Pekin, a town in central Illinois not far from Peoria, is thought to be named for the Chinese capital. Its high school teams were the Chinks until 1981, ...
seattlepi.nwsource.com/levesque/106471_leve30.shtml -

even has a confederate soldier mounted in the gym.

This is the baseball team I grew up with. I have watched them, suffered with them, experienced joy with them all these years.

I cannot do anything about the fact that, since long before I was born, they have had the name Indians and a logo that is obviously a racist caricature (and if you think that version's bad, you should see the older one with the big hooked nose).

Growing up, I didn't see this as any big deal. I never thought of Chief Wahoo as being representative of what any real-life Native American was like. He was just a mascot--a silly-looking mascot. He never represented Indians to me, he represented only baseball (usually, bad baseball).

As I grew older, I came to understand that having such a team name and logo was offensive to some people of Native American heritage. They hate the caricature, and they hate the idea of a caricature of their people serving as a "mascot." And to me, it doesn't matter whether only some of them are offended or not. If only some are offended, that's enough for it to matter.

Many of my fellow local Caucasians have attempted to defend the Indians name and mascot on thr grounds that it is "tradition," or that the name was originally chosen to honor a Native American team member, Louis Sockalexis. Actually, the Sockalexis story is a myth (he did exist, but the team wasn't renamed in his honor--long story), and there are times when "tradition," as painful as it may be to let go of, needs to go.

Whenever I hear a Southerner defending the Confederate flag, I realize there is a way in which I can relate to how he feels. He grew up with it. It is a tradition for him. He may not even be a racist. He may just look at it and feel regional pride, the way I look at Chief Wahoo and think "baseball." But that doesn't really matter. Even if it doesn't symbolize the same reprehensible things to him that it does to other people, it doesn't matter. It needs to go.

So, this is what I think: I think the Indians name and Chief Wahoo will, eventually, go. They won't disappear overnight, and they may not even disappear during this generation, because too many people still alive would make a stink over it, and right now, they still represent the majority. But the day will come when we have raised a whole generation of Clevelanders who feel, for the most part, that the Indians name and logo are in poor taste. And when that comes, sufficient social and financial pressure will be there to change them.

There will be a big naming contest, and a winner, and a new team name (perhaps based on one of the old Cleveland baseball team names, such as the Spiders--I can almost see them now, with Spiderman-like webbing on their red uniform sleeves) and a new logo. The team colors will probably remain the same for tradition's sake. Red, especially, will always be part of it, but this time it will be just a color, not symbolic of anyone's skin.

I don't know that it will happen in my lifetime, but it will happen someday. And when it happens, it'll be doing the right thing.