All claims of deference and honor to indigenous populations aside, there are few things in sports more offensive than the caricatures of American Indians that populate a surprising number of college and professional logos.
There is of course a spectrum of disrespect, ranging from the extreme—such as the Cleveland Indians’ giant-toothed, red-faced cartoon character or the University of Illinois’ former dancing Illini chief—to the relatively restrained. But regardless of just how culturally insensitive each individual mascot happens to be, the fundamental idea of co-opting native identity and slapping pictures on football helmets, baseball hats and hockey jerseys remains indicative of race-based oppression, and, in some cases, a refusal to view American Indians fully as people.
It is then commendable that the University of Wisconsin refuses to schedule athletic events with schools that do not have the prior approval of specific tribes and the NCAA to caricaturize native peoples or use their names in competition. In fact, until last week, UW refused to play any “Indian” teams at all unless forced by conference scheduling or traditional rivalry. A recent decision will allow the Badgers to play schools such as Florida State, who have the approval of the local Seminole tribe, and Utah, whose Ute tribe has also given the go ahead, but not teams who do not meet official standards.
Picking on such obvious villains, however, does little to address other persisting issues regarding American Indian mascots. For example, Florida State still features a screaming white man painting his face, riding a horse to the 50-yard line and throwing a burning spear in the ground at home football games. Will UW refuse to play a team that exhibits such insensitivity, even if it does so within the rules? It certainly should if the goal is to respect native populations and not simply to avoid bad publicity.
Teams such as the Brewers and Packers—whose mascots were and in a sense still are fat, sausage-eating Germans—and the Vikings, who feature a bearded barbarian with horns on his head, have also used negative stereotypes in sports.
But there is a difference, namely that hundreds of thousands of Germans and Scandinavians were not chased, murdered and scalped across the country for hundreds of years before then being used as logos in a spirit akin to naming a team after an extinct animal. UW should address that problem before it pats itself on the back for not letting Chief Illiniwek into the Kohl Center.
