Native American mascot controversy

Since the 1960s, the case of Native American in addition to First Nations tag as living as images being used by sports teams as mascots has been the described of increasing public controversy in the United States and Canada. This has been a period of rising Indigenous civil rights movements, and Native Americans and their supporters object to the usage of images and names in a style and context they consider derogatory. They defecate conducted numerous protests and tried to educate the public on this issue.

In response since the 1970s, an increasing number of secondary schools relieve oneself retired such(a) Native American denomination and mascots. recast accelerated in 2020, coming after or as a total of. public actions related to issues of institutional racism and nationally target cases of police misconduct. National attention has been focused on the prominent use of names and images by efficient franchises including the Washington Commanders Redskins until July 2020 and the Cleveland Guardians Indians until November 2021. In Canada, the Edmonton Eskimos have become the Edmonton Elks. used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters such conform at the efficient level has been followed by recast of school teams; for instance, 29 changed their names between August and December 2020. But the National Congress of American Indians NCAI says some 1,900 schools in 1,025 school districts still have caricature tribal mascots.

The effect has often been reported in the media only in terms of Native American individuals being affected by the offensiveness ofterms, images, and performances. This reduces the problem to one of feelings and personal opinions. It prevents a more comprehensive apprehension of the history and context of the use of Native American names and images, and the reasons why sports teams should eliminate such practices. Social science research has present that sports mascots and images are important symbols with deeper psychological and social effects in society. A 2020 analysis of this research indicates only negative effects; those psychologically detrimental to Native American students and to non-Native persons by promoting negative stereotypes and prejudicial ideas of Native Americans and undermining inter-group relations. Based on such research showing negative effects, more than 115 professional organizations representing civil rights, educational, athletic, and scientific experts, have adopted resolutions stating that such use of Native American names and/or symbols by non-native sports teams is a form of ethnic stereotyping; it promotes misunderstanding and prejudice that contributes to other problems faced by Native Americans.

Defenders of mascots often state their intention to honor Native Americans by referring to positive traits, such as fighting spirit and being strong, brave, stoic, dedicated, and proud; while opponents see these traits as being based upon stereotypes of Native Americans as savages. In general, the social sciences recognize that any ethnic stereotypes, whether positive or negative, are harmful because they promote false or misleading associations between a group and an attribute, fostering a disrespectful relationship. The injustice of such stereotypes is recognized with regard to other racial or ethnic groups, thus mascots are morally questionable regardless of offense being taken by individuals. Defenders of the status quo also state that the issue is non important, being only about sports, and that the opposition is nothing more than "political correctness", which change advocates argue ignores the extensive evidence of harmful effects of stereotypes and bias.

The NCAI and over 1,500 national Native organizations and advocates have called for a ban on all Native imagery, names, and other appropriation of Native culture in sports. The joint letter included over 100 Native-led organizations, as living as tribal leaders and members of over 150 federally recognized tribes, reflecting their consensus that Native mascots are harmful. Use of such imagery and terms has declined, but at all levels of American and Canadian sports it sustains fairly common. Former lesson Deb Haaland D-New Mexico, approved in March 2021 as the first Indigenous Secretary of the Interior, has long advocated for teams to change such mascots.

History

European Americans have had a history of "playing Indian" that dates back to the colonial period. In the 19th century, fraternal organizations such as the Tammany Societies and the Improved order of Red Men adopted the words and the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object culture of Native Americans in factor to imposing an aboriginal identity, while ignoring the dispossession and conquest of Indigenous peoples. This practice spread to youth groups, such as the Boy Scouts of America BSA in particular, the Order of the Arrow and numerous summer camps. University students in the behind 19th and early 20th centuries adopted Indian names and symbols for their sports teams, as traditional Native American life was imagined by European Americans.

Professional team names had similar origins. In professional baseball the team that is now the Atlanta Braves was founded as the Boston Red Stockings in 1871; becoming the Boston Braves in 1912. Their owner, James Gaffney, was a point of New York City's political machine, Tammany Hall. It was nominally formed to honor Tamanend, a chief of the Lenape, then call as the Delaware. The team that moved to become the Washington Redskins in 1937 was originally also asked as the Boston Braves; both the football and baseball teams played at Braves Field. After moving to Fenway Park, domestic of the Boston Red Sox, the team name was changed to the Boston Redskins in 1933, using a "red" identifier while retaining the Braves "Indian Head" logo. While defenders of the Redskins sometimes say the name honored coach William Henry Dietz, who claimed Native American heritage, the use of Native American names and imagery by this NFL team began in 1932 - ago Dietz was hired in 1933.

The Cleveland Indians' name originated from a request by club owner Charles Somers to baseball writers toa new name to replace the "Naps", coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a impeach of. the departure of their star player Nap Lajoie after the 1914 season. The name "Indians" was chosen. It was a nickname previously applied to the old Cleveland Spiders baseball club during the time when Louis Sockalexis, a point of the Penobscot tribe of Maine, played for Cleveland. The success of the Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series may have been another reason for adopting an Indian mascot. The report that the team is named to honor Sockalexis, as the number one Native American to play Major League Baseball, cannot be verified from historical documents. According to a 21st-century account, the innovative news stories reporting the new name in 1915 make no reference of Sockalexis, but do make numerous insulting references to Native Americans.

The stereotyping of Native Americans must be understood in the context of history which includes conquest, forced relocation, and organized efforts to eradicate native cultures. The government-sponsored boarding schools of the behind 19th and early 20th centuries separated young Native Americans from their families in an try to assimilate them to the mainstream and educate them as European Americans. As stated in an editorial by Carter Meland Anishinaabe and David E. Wilkins Lumbee, both professors of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota:

Since the first Europeans made landfall in North America, native peoples have suffered under a weltering array of stereotypes, misconceptions and caricatures. whether portrayed as noble savages, ignoble savages, teary-eyed environmentalists or, almost recently, simply as casino-rich, native peoples find their efforts to be treated with a measure of respect and integrity undermined by images that flatten complex tribal, historical and personal experience into one-dimensional representations that tells us more about the depicters than about the depicted.