An inspirational video featuring Native American youth from this year’s Leadership Development Camp shows viewers who the youth are and who they are not—mascots, savages, alcoholics, drug addicts.
A black and white silent portion of the video has students each holding up a sign saying what they are not, like “I am not a mascot,” and “I am not a savage.” The students are then seen in color and explaining what they are—beautiful, a basketball player, a dreamer, a leader, the next cultural generation.
“We’re proud of our culture and never will ever hide it,” one of the students in the video says.
The Leadership Development Camp is designed for youth ages 13 to 17 from the Coeur d’Alene Reservation. Its goal is to develop leadership skills, resiliency, and strengthen academic skills.
The camp brings the students to the Washington State University Pullman campus for a week-long stay.
“Through participation in team building and sports activities and culturally responsive specialized academic seminars, this one-week residential camp offers students a chance to develop new skills, experience college life, and reflect upon and prepare to meet their goals for the future,” says information with the video.
On Monday, the New York State Assembly unanimously passed a resolution saying that professional sports teams should end their use of racial slurs. The resolution specifically denounces the Washington football team’s name and urges team owner Daniel Snyder to pick a new one.
The bill was originally prompted by students in Cooperstown, New York, who voted to stop using the term “redsk*ns” as the name of their school’s mascot, but it was formally introduced by Assemblymen Keith Wright and Karim Camara on May 6 when a bipartisan group of lawmakers held a press conference denouncing the word.
“We shouldn’t have to put forth this resolution,” Democratic Assemblyman Keith Wright told the Associated Press earlier this month. “The word is absolutely offensive to the Native American community and beyond.”
In a statement on Monday, Camara, who chairs the black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Cacus, condemed the promotion and marketing of racial slurs. He also called on the media to refrain from using the R-word in its media reports.
“Until the NFL decides that the use of a term that is a dictionary defined racial slur should be stopped, the media, especially in New York, should stop using it,” Karmin Camara said in a press release. “New York is a place where all people should feel welcome and not be subjected to racial slurs while reading their morning newspaper. Editors and producers already have guidelines in place to not use certain language, including racial slurs. The time has come for the term “redsk*n” to join the other racial slurs and words used to denigrated different ethnic groups and cultures no longer used by media outlets in New York.”
Karim-Camara (D) (Courtesy Assembly.State.NY.US)
New York State legislators came to their decision on the same day that the NFL hosted its Spring Meeting in Atlanta. They have joined a growing list of individuals, news organizations, Members of Congress, and President Obama in criticizing the team’s name.
“Today is so significant because this resolution signifies that New York is making a statement that it wants to stand on the right side of history,” said Ray Halbritter, CEO of Oneida Indian Nation. “New York’s lawmakers clearly understand how important state legislatures have been to previous movements against pathologies like bigotry and inequality.”
The Oneida Nation’s Change the Mascot campaign has aired nationwide radio ads throughout the past NFL season calling for a name change and the campaign plans to continue its efforts in the upcoming 2014-2015 season.
“Racism should have no place in our society, which includes sports, which are not just games,” Camara said. “They also reflect what we accept and embrace in our culture.”
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III turns out of the pocket during the first half of an NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers in Landover, Md., Monday, Nov. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
As a former student at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, home of the Tomahawks, Dr. Stephanie Fryberg remembers seeing a fellow student clad in a headdress of feathers and watching as other kids participated in the Tomahawk Chop.
Fryberg, a Native American and member of the Tulalip Tribe, said she always found those displays disturbing.
“I was an athlete in Marysville and I was definitely part of the sports culture, but I always felt weird about that,” said Fryberg, who received a PhD from Stanford University in 2003 and is today an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona, where she is also affiliate faculty for American Indian Studies (she is on leave in the current academic year).
“If you’d go and watch (those displays at Marysville-Pilchuck events),” Fryberg added, “you’d never see Native students participating.”
The use of Native American sports nicknames and mascots has been a controversial topic for many years, and one recently rekindled when President Barack Obama said he would “think about changing” the name of Washington’s NFL team, the Redskins, if he owned the ballclub.
“I don’t know whether our attachment to a particular name should override the real legitimate concerns that people have about these things,” Obama added in an interview with The Associated Press.
Fryberg agrees, and said she backs her position with research that proves those nicknames and mascots have a negative effect on the self-perception of Native American students. “I’m a scientist,” she said, “and from that level, absolutely, the data is concrete.”
Team names like Indians, Chiefs and Braves, among others, are “a stereotype that’s playing with someone’s identity,” she said.
Likewise, Fryberg finds the Redskins nickname particularly offensive “because it very much has race connotations, though that’s not my area of (research) expertise,” she said.
This issue has always been particularly relevant at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, which serves the Tulalip reservation. There have been periodic discussions over the years about dropping the Tomahawks nickname, and one of the most intense debates occurred in the 1980s when Marysville High School and Pilchuck High School merged to form Marysville-Pilchuck.
Some in the community urged the school board to use Pilchuck’s nickname, the Chargers, for the newly merged school. But among those arguing otherwise was Don Hatch, a member of the Tulalip Tribal Council and a man who later served 16 years on the Marysville School District board.
Hatch says that Native American nicknames and mascots “are not derogatory,” and he believes it so strongly that he purchased Redskins sweatshirts, hats and other team merchandise when he visited Washington while representing the Tulalip Tribal Council.
“I’m proud of the Redskins,” he said. “I support them, just like I do the Tomahawks. … I think it brings to light us as Indian people.”
Years ago, Seattle’s Blanchet High School considered changing its nickname from Braves. Hatch said he visited the high school and spoke to the students at an assembly, urging them to retain the nickname. His words evidently had an impact as Blanchet teams are still called the Braves.
Likewise, Marysville-Pilchuck remains the Tomahawks and that nickname is a tribute to the Tulalip history, culture “and pride we have,” Hatch said. Likewise, the school colors remain red and white, which is emblematic “of the red man and the white man,” he said.
Tulalip Tribes Chairman Mel Sheldon could not be reached for comment, but in a statement released by a tribal representative he said: “It’s time for sports teams to change mascot designations that use Native American names and cultural imagery. Stereotypes, no matter how innocent they seem, help to perpetuate certain perceptions about Native Americans that obscure our history, and the contributions we’ve made to American society.
According to Fryberg, those nicknames and mascots also demean the people they are purported to esteem. “People say they are honoring Natives,” she said. “No, they’re not.
“Given the difficulties Native students have had being successful in mainstream schools,” she went on, “I just don’t think it’s a place where we need to add one more stereotype and one more barrier for Native students to (overcome). … Negative stereotypes are playing with people’s identity, and at the end of the day, how many Native students have to say it bothers them before we care?”
The striking thing about this issue, of course, is how vigorously people disagree, including many Native Americans themselves. While some see nicknames like Indians, Chiefs, Braves and even Redskins as symbols of disrespect, others like Hatch believe those same nicknames help to preserve the historical dignity, pride and heritage of all Native Americans.
Keeping those nicknames “is very important,” he said. “And I’m proud to have (sports teams) named after our Indian people.”
A poster image that went viral because of its controversial references to sports mascots: New York Jews, San Francisco Chinamen and Cleveland Indians, has caused some media confusion.
According to Slate, news media reported that the poster was “new” and was released recently by the National Congress of American Indians because of the Redskins name change controversy.
But an NCAI source told ICTMN that those reports are inaccurate. The poster, shown above, is not a new one. It was originally published and distributed by the NCAI more than a decade ago. The organization said that what’s “new” is that people are finally paying attention to the Redskins controversy and have merely “stumbled upon” the image during their reporting.
The image, as seen above, shows that there is a double standard between the stereotypical Native American mascots like the Cleveland Indians and other racial epithets. The quote on the poster reads, ”No race, creed or religion should endure the ridicule faced by the Native Americans today.”
The NCAI says that they have been working to shed light on offensive and racist sports team mascots for decades. Jacqueline Pata, Executive Director for the NCAI, pointed out that the original poster was developed in the 1990s, but published by the advertising firm Devito/Verdi in 2001.
Pata told Slate magazine, which has denounced the so-called ‘R’ word that “Those kinds of racial images aren’t even acceptable today.” In other words, the ‘racial equality ad” is not something that the organization would have put out recently because of its tendency to offend and be misconstrued as their response to the current name change controversy.
The organization has instead asked the public to focus on its 29-page report called “Ending the Legacy of Racism in Sports & the Era of Harmful ‘Indian’ Sports Mascots.” ICTMN reported that the report was released last week.
Jefferson Keel, the president of the NCAI, has publicly stated that the word Redskins is a racial slur to the Native American community as is very offensive.
“[That name] originated in the bounty paid for Native body parts and human flesh. It does not honor Native people in any way, and has no place in modern American society,” he explained in a news release.
