(U-WIRE) ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Most students will spend their winter break in front of the television cheering on their favorite sports team — possibly while wearing apparel adorned with their team’s mascot.
But while a wolverine might not be seen as offensive, other university mascots are coming under fire because of their misrepresentation of American Indians.
According to the American Indian Movement, from childhood to adulthood people encounter more than 3,000 culturally insensitive names of sports teams and mascots.
Nickole Fox, secretary for the University’s Native American Student Association, finds Native American mascots inappropriate and offensive.
“There shouldn’t be Native American mascots at all. They are disrespectful and a mockery,” said Fox, an LSA junior.
Vernon Bellecourt, president of the American Indian Movement’s National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media, said mascots demean and trivialize the Native American people, their spiritual and cultural symbols and their self-esteem.
“More indigenous is the fact that children are literally brought into this world thinking cowboys and Indians,” Bellecourt said.
Bellecourt said children play for sports teams with names like Redskins, Braves, Savages and Chiefs. Then they move on to 4-H clubs, which Bellecourt said are the worst offenders, followed by the Indian Princesses and Boy Scouts of America.
Bellecourt said many people go to colleges like Florida State University, University of Illinois, University of North Dakota and University of Utah, with mascots like the Fighting Sioux and the Seminoles, which are culturally and spiritually offensive. The fans wear war paint — not true Native American paint, but Hollywood-created. These are also insensitive to the culture because typically markings are very spiritual and sacred to American Indians.
Bellecourt said the Illinois mascot, Chief Illiniwek, distorts their beautiful, traditional and spiritual dance.
Some college students root for teams like the Cleveland Indians, home of the grinning, bucktooth mascot, which they refer to as “Wahoo” — a racial slur for some.
Fox said people need to be more culturally sensitive. To become more aware, she said people should “take classes about Native American issues and educate yourself. People need to erase all the cowboy and Indian images that they grew up with.”
At the University of Northern Colorado, students responded to a local high school team called the “Fightin’ Reds” by creating the Fightin’ Whites campaign, which raised Native American cultural awareness throughout the community and nation. Through this campaign they also raised over $100,000 for scholarships for Native American students.
“Having Fightin’ Whites is great. People don’t realize how stupid it is to have Native American mascots, but if they put another race up as mascots, it puts things in perspective,” Fox said.
The problem with cultural ignorance goes beyond just sports teams’ mascots, she added.
As a Native American, Fox said she encounters people all the time who are culturally unaware.
She recalls one specific incident where she felt offended. “There was this guy that I worked with this summer. Somehow we got into a conversation on American Indians. When I said that I was a Native American, he asked, ‘Are you?’ and said, ‘You don’t have a wide bridge on your nose. If you were Native American you’d have it.'”
