A Call for Change

For many years sports teams across America have been using Native American Mascots. Some high school, college, and over 500 athletic teams, middle and high schools, and colleges have not discontinued their offensive mascot names) as other sensible teams have in respect for their Native American brothers.

First and foremost, a name that was offensive a few hundred years ago is still just as offensive now. In fact, most culturally offensive names have been around as long as the nations who despise each other have. Take for example the Washington Redskins,  the professional football team of the capital city of the United States of America. The term “Redskin” was a derogatory term used by colonists or pilgrims referring to Native Americans’ skin color. The fact that an insulting name is still being used as the name of a team is outlandish. People need to realize that times have completely changed; Native Americans are part of the United States society, and contribute to the society just as much as the next citizen. Furthermore, Native Americans were on this land before any other race set foot on it.

It is simply inhumane to have another human being represent your team as a mascot. Most mascots today and in history are animals, and the reason Native Americans became mascots in the first place because the white people in early American history saw and treated natives like animals. Even the names of the teams themselves are offensive. Let’s examine some of these team mascots.

Perhaps the most blatant disregard of respect for Native Americans is the fact that the Cleveland’s baseball team still uses the mascot and team name “Indians”. First and foremost, their team name is the name of a nationality of people. That’s like saying the Cincinnati Siberians, the Atlanta Africans, or the Tulsa Tibetans and so on. If someone had never seen or heard of any baseball teams and considered all of these team names, they would think the Cleveland Indians were just as Taboo as the Mississippi Mongolians. Secondly, Indians isn’t even the politically correct term used to describe these people. “Indian” has long been omitted as a name for Native Americans. The only time when Native Americans were ever referred to as Indians was when Christopher Columbus (who was extremely racist by the way) landed on the shores of the Americas and thought he was in India. In a sense, calling a Native American an Indian is like calling an African-American a Negro. Although they were considered the standard in the past, these names are no longer politically correct.

Although there is something to be said about the subjectivity of offense taken by Native Americans, I think that having a specific culture or group of people as a team mascot is dehumanizing and simply not right. In other words, some Native Americans may not take offense to some team mascots and some are strongly offended; however the fact of the matter is that it is not morally right to represent a team with a group of human beings.