One of my favorite parts about class so far was when we skyped the native speaker from Canada. He brought up many good points about different things, but one really stood out to me. The mascot point he brought up really opened my eyes. Being from Cleveland I never really thought about it that way because I was a huge Cleveland Indians fan and everyone loves Chief Wahoo in Cleveland. He also brought up a great point of how the Indians, Redskins, and Blackhawks logos are all decapitated heads that are red. I also enjoyed when he went into depth about how football works and how you go onto the other team’s land in a very violent manner and try to score touchdowns. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? When he said that it really showed me how disrespectful this can be and how we are not really honoring them. Especially when people are at Indian’s games are wearing huge headdresses with feathers when they have no clue the history or significance behind them. Also, when I thought more in depth about it there is literally no other race we really do this for. There are no teams honoring the white or black races with crazy caricatures as mascots.
Jonathan June 22, 2018
I completely agree with you Mike because after listening to the speaker yesterday I never thought about the mascots in sports. One great example the speaker used was about football and how the game is about taking land. Then combining football with team having a Native American as their mascot is very disrespectful to the Native Americans. It is like a reliving the genocide the United States committed and is still committing to the Native Americans. In the future sports teams need to be a lot more conscience when they chose a mascot and determine the kind of message is being sent to their fans and people viewing the sport.
mkthomps June 22, 2018
Dr. Sinclair got me to think about the role of Native mascots too. To me it wasn’t such a big deal because there are white mascots (The Celtics, Fighting Irish etc.). His way of describing the game of football helped me understand how upsetting it can be for Natives to be turned into a cartoon.
Jake June 22, 2018
Yeah, this really stood out to me, too. I always knew that the mascots were racist but I didn’t exactly know why they were. After he spoke about why the mascots were racist and not actually honorable my whole viewpoint changed. Now I know the reason behind everything.
I loved how he explained the game, too. He was not saying the game was bad but in the context of using Native Americans as mascots it was. I’m really glad that he was able to explain it clearly like he did and broaden our horizons.