The NCAA has decided that use of an ethnic group of people as a mascot for sports teams is "hostile and abusive" to American Indians!! [insert big cheer here]. Other editorials from around the country in support of ending this racist tradition of using people as mascots include the Rockford Register Star out of Rockford, Illinois. Mike Freeman's column at Jacksonville.com. Even the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a supportive editorial but you have to subscribe to their website to see it.
Here's an editorial by Myles Brand, President of the NCAA in which he explains the details of the decision and how it came about.
How sad is it that this is so controversial. Here's the article on FSU's reaction to the decision in the St. Pete Times today.
In that article is this quote:
"Some FSU trustees took offense that members of the Seminole Tribe in Oklahoma found the FSU logo to be offensive.
"I could care less what the Seminole Tribe in Oklahoma think. They're in Oklahoma," said trustee Richard McFarlain, a Tallahassee lawyer. "They got run out of here by - who was it, Andrew Jackson or somebody like that? The Trail of Tears? The real Seminoles stayed here."
The "real Seminoles stayed here"??!!! What is that man saying??? Wow. That's really stupid. That's like saying that real black people stayed in Africa. I guess he thinks that those who were too stupid or weak to avoid the slaughter and oppression of the Trail of Tears proved themselves to be "not real" Indians??!!! Is that what you're saying Mr. McFarlain?? So let me get this straight, being Native American is not based on genetics and lived experience but on where you fall on a scale of "toughness"?
Ok. This proves my point about why we should not equate people with animals by using them as mascots for sports teams! It makes stupid ignorant people think stupid, illogical thoughts such as this.
You have to ask why sports teams use mascots. They're supposed to be images of toughness and "fighting spirit" and all that. That's why we have a lot of bears, lions, tigers and bulldogs. You don't see the St. Louis Fighting Guppies for example or the Detroit Parakeets or the Florida Manatees. A mascot should be the epitome of ferocity, right? So what does it say about people when we put a certain group --and only a certain group-- of people, into that category of ferocious animals like lions and tigers and bears? Aren't we saying that these people are just as ferocious as those animals? And why don't we have the Fighting Swedes? Or the Devilish Danes? Or the Evil Ethiopians? or the Angry Anglo-Saxons?
The only defense of the pro-people-as-mascots side is that a handful of higher-ups who "officially" represent the Seminole tribe here in Florida and is NOT representative of all our Native American population here say that it's okay. Well, shoot, I'm sure if Atlanta wanted to have "Little Black Sambo" as their mascot (to honor their history, they'd say) you could probably find a handful of African Americans who would say something just as stupid. I can just see it: "It's an honor for the city of Atlanta to use our image on their football field as a symbol of ferocity". Uh-huh. Sure.
I am so embarrassed to be white today.
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