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| Right | 64% | 263 votes | Total: 413 votes | |
| Wrong | 36% | 150 votes |
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Add to FavoritesMy alma mater's mascot is the Redskins. It always has been and always will be. It is one of only four high schools in California with this so-called "offensive" mascot name. However, it's a name we share with the Washington, DC football team and countless other less well-known teams around the country.
Many other schools have succumbed to political correctness and changed their mascot to something more mundane. Not just Redskins, but Chiefs and Indians are now things like Cardinals or Teddy Bearss. There was even legislation a few years ago trying to force schools like mine to drop our offensive mascot name. Thankfully, it did not pass.
My hometown, Chowchilla, CA, was named for the Chauchile Indians. These were fierce warriors. I don't think too many people in Chowchilla are proud of that, and I think that includes the supposedly misguided souls who, early in the 20th century, decided to name the town and the high school's mascot after these Indians. They wanted to honor the town's first settlers, and wanted to honor their fiercly competitive spirit. It was unfortunate that the first settlers chose to do so by killing other people. It is good that today's Redskins are instead competitive on the playing field, and in academics.
I am sure, even if political correctness had not gone overboard, people would not have named the team Redskins today. Redskin was used as derogatory term, sort of like a word for African-Americans that has evolved to profanity. We would have gone with Indians or Chiefs had the school been named within my lifetime.
But with our school having been open for almost 100 years, the history of the Chowchilla Redskins is as important as the history of the Chauchile Indians. Some families have had four generations graduate from the high school, all of them proud to be Redskins. How devastating it would be if members of those families who are still growing up in Chowchilla were told they had to be something else?
I have only a small percentage of Native American blood, but I believe the full-blooded natives I attended high school with were just as proud to be Redskins as I was. One of them tried out for the school's mascot, Reddy Redskin. She was the best Reddy Redskin I remember the school ever having. I have talked with her recently, and she is still a an exuberant, confident woman. Obviously, being both a Native American and a Redskin did nothing to damage her psyche,
Likewise, for young boys, it was quite the honor to be chosen as Tommy Hawk in my town's annual contest. That contest has been done away with, but in its twilight years, a boy pretty much had to be Native American or Mexican to win. In my childhood, it is true that blond-haired boys occasionally won. Although my mostly European blood makes me a light-skinned brunette, I found it embarassing that a Paleskin cluld win this contest. I was glad to see barriers lifted that discouraged many darker-skinned boys from entering. I wsa sorry to see the contest eliminated all together, but it had the dual uncorrectness of being racially offensive and off limits to girls.
Who are these people who say these mascot names demean Native Americans? I don't think too many of them even attended schools who have the names. And if they did, they can't really blame the mascots for their culture's problems.
Drug and alcohol abuse, poverty and crime are problems in societies everywhere. Unfortunately, they have plagued Native Americans more than some other races. I believe, however, that is due to discrimination that until about 50 years ago that kept them on reservations, and prevented them from having the best education or work opportunities. These are problems for Native Americans whether they went to a high school with Redskins as the Mascot or one with Patriots or Bears or Lions or Tigers. So don't blame the Redskins!
Learn more about this author, Ellen Porter.
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Wrong
The issue of Native mascots has been huge in American Indian communities for decades. Some people will say it is political correctness run amok. I say these people have probably never had a single conversation with a Native person.
I've worked with Native communities for several years, and while there are serious issues facing Native peoples such as health care, economics, and addictions, this is the most well-known issue to non-Natives. It's also the most blatantly racist.
I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio with Chief Wahoo as the symbol of my hometown baseball team. Let's take a moment and look at Chief Wahoo. His bright red skins, huge goofy smile, and the cartoonish look about him. Clevelanders will say, "Well, it's in honor of the first Native player who played in Cleveland." This is partly true. Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot tribe of Maine, is noted as the first person of Native American descent to play Major League Baseball.
Louis Sockalexis faced racial slurs and imitated war dances every time he was on the field. During the turn of the century, when Sockalexis was in the peak of his career, racism against Native peoples was rampant and Sockalexis faced this on the baseball field, in the press and in his day to day life.
To think that Chief Wahoo was "in honor" of Louis Sockalexis is downright embarrassing. It's a cartoon making fun of an athlete who faced massive obstacles in his professional career and personal life. It's convenient to just pass it off as an "honor" rather than being honest to the fact that it is a racist symbol.
Native people consistently object to these mascots by pointing out that there would never be a Jacksonville Jew or a grossly inappropriate symbolizing another culture or race. For some reason, it's acceptable to use Native people.
The fact is no one wants absorb the financial costs of changing a mascot. Universities have to create a new logo, change all of their merchandise and brand their educational institutions differently. In the film "In Whose Honor?" directed by Jay Rosenstein, the issue of Chief Illiniwek (a fictional character) is explored as the University of Illinois faces its own controversy. The mascot, in his headdress and tomahawk, ran around the field with a made-up dance made Native people across the nation uncomfortable and angry. It wasn't until 2007, to many alumni and student objections, the trustees finally voted to change the mascot.
My question is: why would any educational institution or hometown sports team, want to be connected to a blatantly racist icon, let alone use it to represent its faculty, students, alumni, and community? Personally, I would be mortified.
Learn more about this author, Stephanie Joynes.
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