The following is by my colleague Alex Pearl; Alex is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and writes and teaches on Indian Law.
As
mentioned here, the National Museum of the American
Indian held a symposium entitled “Racist Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in
American Sports.” In this post I am
limiting the discussion to the Redskins specifically and sports mascots
generally.I have to plug the
comprehensive blog, Native Appropriations, which examines
representations of Indigenous Peoples in popular culture generally, including
sports.
I’ve lost count of how many times the two
entrenched sides of the Indian mascots debate have made their arguments.The arguments of the respective camps can be
summarized as follows.Pro-Indian
Mascots: We are honoring you and we have a connection to the team name, if you
are offended then that is political correctness run amok.Anti-Indian Mascots: We are not being honored
and your connection to the team name is ridiculous.In the interest of full disclosure, I’m an enrolled
member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma (i.e.,
I’m an Indian).
I think there are opportunities for
advancing the debate in an objective way.There is research performed by Dr. Stephanie Fryberg and others that
examine the effects of American Indian mascots on “aspects of the self-concept
for American Indian students.” [Of Warrior Chiefs and Indian Princesses: The
Psychological Consequences of American Indian Mascots, available at
http://www.indianmascots.com/fryberg__web_psychological.pdf].Here’s the abstract findings from her jointly
authored paper:
When exposed to Chief Wahoo, Chief Illinwek,
Pocahontas, or other common American Indian images, American Indian students
generated positive associations (Study 1, high school) but reported depressed
state self-esteem (Study 2, high school), and community worth (Study 3, high
school), and fewer achievement-related possible selves (Study 4, college). We
suggest that American Indian mascots are harmful because they remind American
Indians of the limited ways others see them and, in this way, constrain how
they can see themselves.
Dr.
Fryberg was not at the Symposium held at the NMAI.While I think the symposium does some good
by focusing on the cultural gulf existing between Indian and non-Indian
society, I think it would be more worthwhile for there to be greater emphasis
on the type of research performed by Dr. Fryberg and others.Moving the debate beyond “This mascot doesn’t
honor me” to “This mascot causes empirically demonstrable psychological harm to
Indian youth” is, in my view, preferred. As an added bonus, studies like these may provide
evidentiary support for the more recently filed action, Blackhorse v. Pro-Football, Inc., seeking to cancel
the trademarks affiliated with the Washington Redskins
As Sally Jenkins pointed out in her Washington Post
article, many potentially influential people have raised this issue and
suggested a name change.However, the
franchise, and accompanying branding and trademarks, is simply too valuable to change.
Unless there is a significant
intervening economic event, like the Blackhorse
case prevailing, substantial fines by the NFL, or boycotts by fans and ticket
holders the mascot is not going to change. All this moral weight and scientific evidence
will not trump the economic bottom line.
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