The bad news is the Washington Redskins beat the Detroit Lions. The good news is the national media have finally caught on to the complaints American Indians have been voicing for many years. The media will gather in Minneapolis for Super Bowl Sunday on Jan. 26 with note pads, camera lenses and microphones at the ready to cover what will be the largest protest by American Indians against a professional football team in the history of this country. Our complaint: very simply, Indians are people, not mascots.
We have just entered the year when American history will be scrutinized, analyzed, eulogized, criticized and sterilized. It is the year of Christopher Columbus. More accurately, it is the year of the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere of those with red skin. It is the year the non-Indian should form a new awareness of the Indian, a new awareness based on mutual respect. That respect will never be honest until we, as American Indians, are included in the race of human beings.
As an Oglala Lakota (Sioux), born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota, I find it very hard to understand why non-Indians find it hard to understand why we consider it insulting to be treated as mascots. If white and black America is so inconsiderate of its indigenous people that it can name a football team the Redskins and see nothing wrong in this, where has our education system gone wrong?
When you, as black, yellow, white or brown Americans, watch the Super Bowl this year, do what I did while watching Washington beat Detroit. During the first quarter, I had John Madden substitute “Yellowskins” for “Redskins.” In the second quarter I substituted “Brownskins.” I started the second half by having Mr. Madden call Washington the “Whiteskins.” And finally, in the fourth quarter, I replaced “Redskins” with “Blackskins.” Try it and you will see how demeaning, degrading and insulting it is to the people of different colored skin.
This is not a new issue to the Indian people. I have been writing about “Indians as mascots” for nearly 15 years. Recently, Sen. Paul Simon has been outspoken in attempting to rid the University of Illinois of its dreadful mascot, Chief Illiniwek. Last month he read my editorial on Indians as mascots into the Congressional Record hoping he would be able to educate the rest of that august body to be more sensitive to the First Americans. But for the most part, the American government and the media have paid little or no attention to our complaints.
At the recent national convention of the National Congress of American Indians in San Francisco, workshops were set up to help plan the Super Bowl protest. Charlene Teters-a graduate of the University of Illinois who has long fought the Chief Illiniwek mascot there-showed a roll of toilet paper she bought near the school. The figure of Illiniwek was imprinted on each tissue. “Mascots disgrace Indian people,” she said. “When a static symbol is used to represent a group of people, it gives off a one-dimensional image and devalues the living individuals.” Some might wonder why Indians are so offended by being used as mascots and namesakes when there are so many other things wrong in Indian country. William Means, director of the International Indian Treaty Council, has an answer. “If we can’t get white America to understand the basic issue of human respect, how can we get them to understand more substantive issues like sovereignty, treaty rights and water rights?”
During a radio talk show I was on, at the time of the Atlanta Braves brouhaha, a lady named Diane called to say she had attended a high school with a team nicknamed “Indians.” She said she was proud to paint her face, stick feathers in her hair and make Hollywood war whoops as part of her cheerleading duties. “I felt we were honoring the Indian people,” she said. Suppose your team was called the “African-Americans,” I asked her. Would you paint your face black, wear an Afro wig and prance around the football field trying to imitate your perceptions of black people? She responded, “Of course not! That would be insulting to blacks.” My point is made, I responded.
Never mind that there are certain Indian individuals, tribes or groups who profit by selling plastic tomahawks, turkey-feather ceremonial bonnets and other trinkets to the rabid sports fans who would use this paraphernalia to denigrate Indians. As history has recorded, there have always been sellouts who rode with the cavalry against their own.
We saw the Atlanta Braves fall in the World Series and the Florida State Seminoles get their tail feathers clipped after flying high most of 1991, and Indian people across America cheered. We also heard sports announcers attempting to make light of racist antics. We witnessed insensitive television directors focus their cameras on the wild, painted and feathered fans swinging their plastic tomahawks while the band played its version of the Hollywood-created version of Indian music. Hey yah! Hey yah!
I’ll close with a facetious prediction: that Jack Kent Cooke, the owner of the Washington Redskins, will be seized with remorse for having insulted the Indian people all of these years. He will change the name of his team to the “Palefaces,” after his own race and that of one of his favorite singers, Madonna. The team song will be changed from “Hail to the Redskins” to “Like a Virgin.” What an honor it will be for the white race.
And furthermore, I predict the Buffalo Bills will skin the Redskins in Super Bowl XXVI. It will be the first time in history a Buffalo ever skinned a Redskin.
The American Indian has lost so much to the white man since 1492. Must we also be used as mascots? If we cannot get back the land, will you at least give us back our dignity?
