In the “It’s About F**king Time!” category, we heard today that a new Wisconsin law just went into effect which outlaws racially-based sports team nicknames, i.e. Indians, Chiefs, etc. Wasting no time to take advantage of the new law, just this morning a Native American couple, Harvey and Carol Gunderson, drove to the state capital to lodge a complaint against a high school with the nickname "Chieftains". You go, Gunderson's! Many watchers of legal trends predict that this Wisconsin law will be the first blow which will hopefully take down every racially-based sports nickname in the country. We repeat: it’s about f**king time.
A couple of weeks ago when we watched the hysterical celebration by Chicagoans when their “Chicago Blackhawks” won the Stanley Cup, we couldn’t help but wonder if any of those drunken white people ever gave even a passing thought to the name of the team for which they were about to vomit on someone's car. So often in American society , we become numb to wrongdoing, either because no one calls our attention to it, or we’re just too lazy to deal with it. It’s bothered us for years that we still have so many professional sports teams with offensive name like “Redskins”, “Chiefs”, “Braves”, etc., and to make matters worse, fans do the "tomahawk chop" at the Atlanta Braves' games, and in one of the most cringe-inducing acts of modern American life, at the Florida State Seminole games, they actually put a student in an "Indian brave costume", complete with warpaint and feathers, and he runs across the field while the crowd chants a B-movie style Indian war song. Come on, people, we're better than that. And hopefully smarter.
Native American groups have protested for change for years, but they're always shoved to the back of the bus with blanket declarations like "it's just political correctness run amok", and "I've never heard any Native Americans complain about this". If you haven't heard, you haven't been listening.
It's not rocket science. Think about the origin of sports team nicknames; nicknames were created to represent a supposed quality of a team such as bravery, strength, fierceness. There's a reason why so many teams are nicknamed for eagles, bears and lions, and not teddy bears or marshmellows. Eagles, bears and lions will have you for lunch, literally, while teddy bears and marshmellows aren't much help in a gang fight. In the late 19th Century, when sports teams began to give themselves nicknames, they looked around for names which would represent their fighting spirit, and at that time, Native Americans were considered only slightly more human than bears and lions. We weren't that far removed from the years in which whites and Native Americans still fought to the death over American land in the West. So it would make perfect sense that, in an attempt to come up with an animalistic name which would inspire fear in one's opponents, a team would adopt the name of a wild, crazy, bloodthirsty savage, or an Indian. But now, over a century later, don't you think it's just a little silly that we still consider it okay to perpetuate a ridiculous stereotype of an entire race of American citizens?
And if you're still not convinced, then just substitute the name "Redskins" with "Blackskins". Would you still think it's okay if the football team of Washington, D.C. chose to project their strength by recalling the might with which those black people used to pick our cotton? "Hey, they could work harder than anyone, from dawn to dusk, and never a complaint. We're honoring them by only mentioning their strengths, and their qualities which we admire. Why would they be offended by that? We're not making fun of them." Sounds pretty bad, right? Well, that's the actual argument that most white people have made when they've been challenged over their Indian-named teams. Whites have actually argued that "Indians are honored by the fact that we think they're brave and strong and fierce."
Let's get real, there's no way to defend these sports nicknames in 2010. The only shocking thing is that it's taken this long for a state to pass a law which bans them. But that doesn't mean that some won't try to defend the "tradition". Bob Kleibenstein, of Tomah, Wis., still smarting that his Tomah High School "Indian" was changed a few years ago to a "Timberwolf", said, "Right now, the trendy thing seems to be to get rid of Native American mascots. And in three to five years, the trendy thing might be to get rid of animal mascots." Yes, that's right, Bob, it's all just a whimsical yuppie trend that some would like to see the end of racial stereotyping. And next we'll come after your animal mascots? Wow. That's just exactly the same type of Rhodes Scholar-like thinking that usually follows the argument of gay marriage with, "What's next, men are going to want to marry goats?" Maybe Bob can start a team with the name that most people probably call him behind his back, "Backwoods Ignoramus". Oh, the Backwoods Ignorami are having a hard night, folks, they can get the ball in the basket, but they just can't seem to figure out how to add up the score.
No comments:
Post a Comment