Racist Name Brands

For decades there has been controversy over racist mascots in professional sports, especially the mascots of the NFL’s Washington Redskins and the MLB’s Cleveland Indians.  Though there are many that argue that these mascots are “not racist at all,” the reality is that any team or business that depicts an entire race, which they have chosen to use as their mascot, in a racially stereotyping way, the mascot is blatantly racist. Therefore, these mascots should be changed as soon as possible.  The Redskins and the Indians both happen to target those whose mascot they represent: Native Americans. The word “redskin” actually derives from Native American languages that were translated by the French sometime in the 1760s. The words describing the “redness” of their skin was actually something they used to refer to themselves in order to differentiate between skin colors. The word began circulating around 1810, when it was used at a White House meeting by a Native American tribe leader. Up until 1815, the term redskin was simply their way of characterizing and grouping themselves together as a race.  However, in 1863, a Republican newspaper in Minnesota released a statement that the state reward for “dead Indians” had been increased to “$200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory.” This was the first use of the word in a derogatory way, which was simply characterized by the fact that that was the name being used for a people the government was trying to have slaughtered. Since then, the use of “redskin” or “red skin” has been very prominent in so many racist depictions of American Indians on television, in the media, and so forth. Especially because it is an outdated racist term that people used to use to describe Native Americans, the name Redskins is definitely a racist name, because it is not only a racial stereotype, but also just an ignorant, crude depiction of an entire race.  The Cleveland Indians’ racist issue is slightly different than that of the Redskins. While some could argue that the “Indians” is a racist name, it is not the name that sparks the most outrage and controversy, but rather the depiction of the mascot, and rightly so.  The mascot of the Indians is a cartoon head of a Native American chief, named Chief Wahoo. Chief Wahoo is a racist and stereotypical depiction of Native Americans for a number of reasons. The first is like the issue of the Redskins: the color of the skin. Chief Wahoo is colored bright red in his face, which just pushes Native Americans into the stereotype of having particularly red skin. Another flaw to the cartoon of Wahoo is his facial expression, and the way his eyes are depicted. His eyes are depicted as more triangular and his facial expresses some sort of malicious activity, which sheds a negative light and implies that Chief Wahoo is all taking part in some suspicious, possibly dangerous behavior. There is also the issue of the feather that the Chief is wearing atop his head, to which many take extra offense. Blasphemous In many Native American cultures, the eagle feather is very symbolic, traditionally given to someone who had been injured in battle. Protestors say that this use of the feather especially is a mockery of their culture, religion, and spirituality. The cartoon of Chief Wahoo is clearly and obviously a racist depiction of a Native American.  Since the 1970s and 1980s, various organizations and groups including hundreds of tribal nations, national tribal organizations, civil rights organizations, school boards, sports teams, and individuals have done their part protesting and speaking out against both of these mascots.  The sad thing is, these protests have been met and agreed by powerful politicians, and yet nothing has been done to change the mascots.  Recently in 2013, after the symposium "Racist Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports" at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, even more people than before were outraged. Interestingly, even politicians were frustrated at the racism of the name, “Redskins.” Ten members of congress wrote to the owner of the Washington Redskins and the NFL commissioner asking for the changing of the mascot. Upon receiving this letter, owner Daniel Snyder replied simply with “We'll never change the name. ... It's that simple. NEVER—you can use caps.”  Sadly there is quite a lot of irony taking place here. These mascots were chosen and designed in an earlier time, when our country was not as progressive, and was more in a mode of exclusion rather than acceptance. Somehow, in this day and age, where many millennials have grown up knowing nothing more than a black president, and there is so much more acceptance of difference, there is still a refusal to eliminate a form of racism. What is very ironic is the fact that the owners refusing to change their teams’ names are not the ones who are victims of the racism. They refuse to listen to the voices of those who actually feel offended, and instead, convince themselves that there is no racism to be found.  The ones refusing to change the name should not be the ones deciding whether or not the names are racist. The voices of those who believe that this kind of racism has no place in our society, let alone multi-million dollar sports franchises, need to be heard on a much bigger scale. There is no doubt that the team mascots are racist.