The Mascot Issue:
Decapitating the Indian Image
How did FN People get turned into Sports
logos and What do these logos signify?
 Book: “The Last of the Mohicans”
 James Fenimore Cooper, 1826
 During French Indian War
 Painted Image: Indians = Ignoble Savages
(attack women / children)
 Sole-less beings (Christianity)
 Violent Sports: Football / hockey
(also
(also basketball/baseball)
 8 of top 10 college sports teams have animal nicknames
 Other 2 = “Warriors” and “Indians”
 Degrades Indians  makes them appear as less than human
Discourses Represented: Why
were these images invented?
 Icons/pictures not representative of people/cultures
 Offensive caricatures
 Claimed to “honor” FN people
 Created by population that almost obliterated them
 Used to belittle culture… Create stereotypes
 Would a German soccer team honoring holocaust survivors by
naming soccer team “The Fighting Jews” be appropriate?
UND Fighting Sioux
 Sioux = “Snake” (Lakota/Dakota tribes)
 Sioux Never asked for this
“honor”
 Heated rivalry with
NDSU Bison's
Reasons for name change:
Sioux are a good exterminating agent for Bison
2. Sioux are warlike, of fine physique and bearing
3. The word Sioux is easily rhymed for yells and songs
1.
Cleveland Indians
 “We’ll have the Indians on the warpath all the
time, eager for scalps to dangle at their belts”
- Cleveland Sportswriter, 1915
 “Honor” Louis Sockalexis
 Quit due to racial
discrimination
 Died as an alcoholic beggar
 Is “Chief Wahoo” an accurate depiction?
Movie: “Major League Baseball”
 Scene: 9th inning of last game
 Thousands of white people dressed
in Indian garb
 Indians facing Yankees = colonial
narrative
 Indians win well after fact they are
raped/pillaged by western culture
 Ultimate act of appropriation
 Metaphor: Can’t even win own
battles against Yankees
 White people had to do it for them
Not simply Mascots/Logo’s… Also
Racist Practices
 FSU Seminole’s Home Games:
 Chief Osceola rides onto field
 Plants fiery spear into turf
 Before battle:
 Once you go past this line you declare war
 On Campus: “Unconquered” statue of
Chief Osceola
 Both images of savagery
FN people stuck in the past…
Like wild beasts to be conquered
Similarities between Logos
 All Decapitated Chiefs or Images of Violent
Weapons
Good Indian Mascots:
How do they get selected and are they
really good?
 2010 Olympics Winter logo
 Ilaanaq the Innunguaq
 Ilaanaq = Inuktitut word
for “friend”
 Inuits not asked permission
to use knowledge/ name for logo
Olympic committee benefits off their beliefs and
the Inuits see none of the profits
Who Profits from these logo’s?
 James Sinclair:
 Not the Indians themselves…
 Major Indian territory
 Make money by keeping Indians depressed
 Influences ways land titles are claimed
 Assists in continuing conquering and dispossession of
Indigenous people
Effects on Youth
 All children harmed by mascots (not just native children)
 Once stereotype is established, very difficult for students
to learn about present day Indians afterwards
 Many children believe that Indians have
been killed off long time ago and that’s why
their school logo is an Indian: to be
remembered
 .: Crucial for educators to teach school
age children about sports team logos
How are FN People responding to
the Mascot Issue?
 Mostly through writing
Claimed offensive because:
 Reinforces cultural stereotypes
 Perpetuates violent war-like icons
 Denigrates native spirituality
 Created uproar in NCAA
 18 teams banned from post season competition
in 2005 due to logos/nicknames considered
“hostile or abusive”
Resistance movement
 Vernon Bellecourt: "We are saying - start playing football and stop
playing Indian. Stop this dehumanizing, degrading, and despicable
exploitation of our culture and spiritual life."
 Clyde Bellecourt, National Director, AIM: "We don't want to be
mascots for America's fun and games."
 Mike Wicks: "We need to educate the educators. Show them the
harm that is being done to all children.“
 Charlene Teters, Spokane: “This war, no longer on battlefields is now
being fought in the courtrooms, corporation boardrooms, and
classrooms over the appropriation of Native American names,
spiritual and cultural symbols by professional sports, Hollywood,
schools, and universities. The issue for us is the right to self
identification and self determination this is the fight of the National
Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media.”
Conclusion
 James Sinclair:
“We must take it upon
ourselves to educate people,
especially the youth, about
how much harm is being done
to the Native community
through exploitation and false
representation of our people.
It is time to speak up, through
our actions and through
literature so that one day, First
Nations People will be
recognized as equal beings
with the rest of our society”