LOGOS AND MASCOTS

When I first landed in Cincinnati, I thought there weren't any Indians living here. But since noon, I have seen a Cherokee, Navajo, Winnebago, Dakota, Mohawk and a Comanche, and those were just the RV's, trucks, cars and small aircraft"!

At a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, these remarks were quite humorous, yet point out the fascination that America has with imagery in promoting products. This promotion focuses on symbols that reflect either the product or the belief behind the image. For example Wings shoes uses a shoe with wings, NBC uses a peacock, Gibraltar Insurance uses a rock, etc. But what about when that symbol is a caricature of a human being or of a race of people? How does that imagery promote forms of racism?

The Cleveland Indians baseball franchise has as its logo a caricature of an Indian head smiling with huge glaring buckteeth. The Atlanta Braves, Kansas City Chiefs and Washington Redskins are all professional sport businesses which promote their team with similar logos and mascots which demean and degrade Native peoples.

The Atlanta Braves' "tomahawk chop" is now a national gesture with baseball fans. Native people have demonstrated season after season in an attempt to halt the degrading chop. The sports fans who claim that the chop isn't offensive do not understand the deep pain which they inflict on Native people, especially Native children. Headdresses made of chicken feathers and the "warpaint" they have adopted from Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans add to the wound of racism. Traditionally, eagle feathers are only given to or worn by those who have received them for some action of great honor. Not everyone is so awarded during their lifetime. To see fake feathers worn by painted, often drunken fans at a sports game is a mockery of something Native people hold sacred. It would be the same as a crowd o fans dressed up as the Pope at a New Orleans Saints game and doing the "cruxific chop". What would be the reaction to Catholics around the country?

High schools, colleges, and universities whose teams are named after some tribal nation or use the names "Indians, Warriors" or "Braves" insist that they are doing this to bring honor to Native Americans. If that is the case, let us "honor" other races and groups of people with team names such as the New Jersey Jews, the New York Niggers, the Chicago White Bastards or the San Francisco Queers. Let us further "honor" these groups with demeaning caricatures of a rabbi in flowing robe, a Black Sambo image, a mascot who would run around in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.

In fact, schools and professional sports teams who use Native names and mascots provide the breeding ground for "acceptable"racism. And that is what our children see at school and on television. That is what these team logos and mascots of Native Americans teach them , that it is "acceptable" to demean a race or a group of people. That is what they grow up thinking about"Indians".

WE URGE CONGRESS TO HALT FEDERAL FUNDS TO THOSE SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES AS WELL AS ANY PROFESSIONAL SPORT TEAMS WHO UTILIZE FACILITIES FUNDED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND WHOSE SPORTS TEA M MASCOTS/LOGOS DEPICT NATIVE PEOPLE OR TRIBES IN A DEMEANING WAY.

WE URGE THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION TO HALT BROADCASTING GAMES OF SPORT TEAMS WHICH HAVE TEAM NAMES AND MASCOTS/LOGOS WHICH DEPICT NATIVE PEOPLE IN A DEMEANING WAY.

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