An Indian Mascot used "In Honor" of Native Americans...

[Sandpiper]

Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians...




What Native American wouldn't be honored by such a flattering portrayal?

[Maple]

1. Not to mention the ridiculous name

Probably says 'how' and 'ugh' like the 'Indians' in the old western movies used to do as well

[Rex]

2. Chief Wahoo was a bugs bunny character.

How flattering. :eyes:

[tmooses]

3. With a different ethnic stereotyping this would be considered a

"watermelon grin". You've got multi-million dollar pampered baseball players wearing an ethnic slur of a people who have had nothing less than genocide perpetrated on them. Have attitudes changed since the slaughter 150 years ago? Doesn't seem like it. The good ol American pasttime-racism.

[Sandpiper]

7. Imagine for a moment

That the Chief's skin was brown instead of red, he had an Afro instead of a feather, and one of his front teeth was gold.

People would be howling with outrage and rightly so.


If racist caricatures are wrong for some, they're wrong for all.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

13. Ya mean like this?

[Wetzelbill]

4. yeah I burst with pride whenever I see my people portrayed like that nt

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. But...but....but

[knitter4democracy]

6. That's why I don't allow it in my house.

My hubby may be a Cleveland fan, but even he's disgusted by Chief Wahoo. Frankly, they need to change the name and the mascot of the team. It's disgusting.

[applegrove]

8. I think people have a right to their likeness.

[Jersey Devil]

9. Didn't the Braves have "Chief Knockahoma"?

and a teepee out in the right field bleachers? Did they stop doing that?

[Jersey Devil]

10. St John's "Redmen" were forced to change their name though

I don't think the name ever had anything to do with native americans and just reflected that their uniforms were red, like the Harvard Crimson and NYU Violets and Columbia Blue. They are now the "Red Storm". I thought that was a bit ridiculous.

[puerco-bellies]

11. The way I personally see it.

The way I personally see it.

I am of Native desent-Apache/Yaqui. I do smoke ceremonies with a friend who is also of Apache descent, and is a sacred pipeholder. We do our smoke ceremonies in the Lakota tradition, because that is the way my friend learned. We both attended a Bear Dance recently on the Pala Reservation a little south of the Los Angeles basin, and the elder running the ceremony was (I'm pretty sure) from the Watok Nation, in central California. I spoke with him between songs (dances), about my concern that I don't have access to my ancestral traditions. His reply was that we had lost so much we should not be concerned with trying to recover what has been erased, so much as preserving as much as possible what has survived.

My point is that even though these sport mascots are caricatures of the peoples that had come before, they still honor their bravery, and their culture, even though that culture has been corrupted to another purpose. It still remembers and gives voice to a people decimated.

To me, by remembering in any way those who have passed through the Southern Door, is to honor them, to remember their deeds, and their sacrifices. To do this is to remember them "in a good way". In this way, they have not been forgotten in the land that gave birth to them, in this way, they are immortal. This is but my personal opinion.

Ha Ho!

P-B

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

12. But don't you think educational institutions such as colleges could

find a more empowering way to honor your predecessors than stereotypes (largely disempowering ones?)

I'm not challenging your opinion, in fact, I salute it..I am just asking.

[puerco-bellies]

14. Hi NSMA

There is nothing in this world that cannot be improved upon. I am certain that a team like the Atlanta Braves could tie their use of a mascot with an athletic programs on a reservation or two. Not likely but that would be better then what we have now.

[jmowreader]

15. I thought you were going to show this guy...

This is the mascot of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke's Braves.

UNCP is the oldest Historically Native-American University in the United States. It is one of only four universities to offer Native American Studies. And of the 5000 or so students, almost all of them are Native Americans--most of them from the Lumbee tribe that lives in this area.

And about once a year, the group who has taken on the task of getting rid of all the Native American sports nicknames goes after UNCP--even though the students there have repeatedly told them "we're keeping him, this is who we are."

However, they DID ditch the guy in the Indian suit who used to dance around the sidelines. Now the mascot is an eagle--a replica of an eagle statue that stands on campus.