Mascot Massacre

DID YOU CHEER for the Washington Redskins on Superbowl Sunday? You must be a racist.

According to Indian nationalist groups like the American Indian Movement (AIM), team names like "Braves" or "Indians," let alone the overtly bigoted "Redskins," degrade Native peoples to the status of mascots. They say using sacred symbols as team logos, such as the feathered headdress, is an act of "cultural appropriation" and indicates a failure to take Indian religions seriously.

Pressure from activist organizations like AIM has already forced some universities to change their team names to something less racially charged. For example, the Dartmouth Indians became the Big Green in 1970. Now the focus is on professional teams, which are better-known and thus in a position to influence public perceptions of Indians.

But it doesn't look like those teams, or their fans, are likely to accept a name change. Some cite tradition as all-important. Others, more convincingly, claim that calling a team "the Braves" might be a gesture of admiration towards the Indians, not a trivialization of their culture. Still others dismiss the whole matter as the usual PC haggling over semantics.

THE FACT THAT BOTH sides are partially right offers the possibility of a compromise. Before this can be accomplished, however, the tone of the debate must change. Presently each side begins and ends by attacking the other's sensitivity or sincerity, an approach more likely to perpetuate antagonism and stereotypes of the "angry Indian" and the "bigoted white guy" than it is likely to bring about changes in America's flawed relationship with Native peoples.

To begin with, this is an important issue, and not only because of the power of images and stereotypes in American's media-dominated culture. In Indian traditions, words and images not only represent but also embody the spiritual power of what they depict. This has often been compared to the way Catholics think of the bread and wine in the Communion service.

Sports fan's use of Native symbols like the sacred eagle feathers and the tomahawk has an added blasphemous dimension for Indian culture--a dimension not evident to those who think this debate simply revolves around public image.

However, the original motives behind the team names must not be too quickly condemned. First, the majority of people know nothing about the Indian understanding of the power of words and images.

Also, teams are given names like "the Braves" and "the Indians" for the same reason that they are given names like "the Vikings" and "the Saints": the team wants to be associated with the cliche qualities of their namesake, like strength, courage and endurance. If the intent were to ridicule or trivialize a class of people, why would anyone name their team after those people? Would you root for a team called "the Pansies"?

Yet even thought the original intent may not have been oppressive, our society is today more aware of ethnic stereotyping, and the issue of the appropriation of Indian symbols can no longer be ignored. Neither, however should teams be prevented from using the image of the Indian to represent bravery and fortitude, since this is hardly a negative stereotype.

The following seems to be a satisfactory compromise: First, change any team names that use inherently prejudiced terms, like "Redskins." Learn what symbols are too sacred for casual use, and replace them. Productive dialogue with people from Native cultures will allow teams to find other symbols that could represent the Indians without degrading them.

As for teams whose names emphasize positive qualities, like "the Braves," the only restriction should be on the use of symbols by team and fans. War dances at halftime should definitely be discontinued: imagine a Native football game in which the cheerleaders pranced about with wine and wafers during halftime, pretending to celebrate Communion.

YET EVEN THIS SOLUTION may not be accepted by Indian activists. Gabrielle Tayac, a Native American graduate student at Harvard, contends that the issue is not only whether more or less sacred symbols are used, but also the larger problem of reducing Indians to a stereotyped image, whatever the components of that image.

However, shallow characterizations of many groups, whether ethnic, regional or occupational, are a standard feature of modern culture. The Harvard community alone offers many examples: "Adams House members all wear black, smoke and read Derrida," or "statistics concentrators all wear hornrimmed glasses and bowties," for instance.

Tag-label images like the above are not dehumanizing prejudices but quick ways of describing the general character of a group. No one claims they accurately represent every individual or that they are the last word on the groups to which they refer.

Given this natural human propensity for making thumbnail sketches of different types of people, removing all references to Indians from team names is unlikely to prevent people from having a generic image of "the Indian," just as they have one of "the English," "the artist," or "the New Yorker."

The existence of this generic image, as long as it is not a derogatory one, should not be considered an instance of special prejudice against Indians.

The result of this controversy should be a greater sensitivity to the use of images in a nation that encompasses many different cultural worldviews. We can only hope that this heightened awareness will not also create an atmosphere of paranoia in which Indians cannot even be mentioned without offending someone. But this is probably wishful thinking.