by Stephanie Joynes

Created on: April 08, 2008

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.

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