Friday, October 9, 2009
In Whose Honor?
Upon entering class today was still on the fence on the issue regarding mascots of Native Americans being racist. First, with professional sports teams such as the Chiefs, Braves, Indians, Redskins, and Blackhawks typically I do not associate the mascot with the team directly. For example checking the standings of the NFC East division in the NFL you would see the four teams being recognized by the cities they play in: New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Washington. But after discussion today I am leaning slightly toward the mascots being offensive and harmful to the Native American culture if they are misrepresented. We have kinda made the Native American mascots into our own understanding of their culture. What really hit me was if someone was to mock misrepresent my faith or my religion I would consider it extremely disrespectful and I would be hurt emotionally. So I can see where the Native Americans would consider this racism and want for these mascots to either be better represented or for them to not exist period.
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I thought the same way. I never really thought about it that much but the last couple days really opened my eyes. Like Smeth said he doesnt want anyone making fun of his culture or religion and i dont think anybody does. But here we are respecting these teams that bring down such hard feelings on the native Americans and we do nothing about it. So many people think that it isnt a problem and thats because we just look at them as a mascot and not look at them through the eyes of a native americans are.
ReplyDeleteI too agree that we as a culture simply would rather continue on with our daily lives tha go out of our way to change soimething that is being doen wrong. Yes it is hard for us to understand, but we are not native americans. Just like it is hard for me to understand other religious practices, but that doesnt give me the right to go and make fun of them etc.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of these statements. It is really easy to see why this is a problem when you think about it in terms of a different race/regligion. There seems to be a double standard because you know that if someone did this to another group of people, it probably wouldn't last a month and it would be changed.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I have no problem with it. What I mean by that is if someone wanted to nickname their team/mascot the angry caucasians, more power to them; I wouldn't care. However, I'm assuming I would have much different feelings if my race had been discriminated against in the way that the Native Americans have been.