http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3358390

Sept. 17, 2005, 8:22PM

For dignity's sake, stop using Indians as sports mascots
By TIM GIAGO (NANWICA KCIJI)

UNDER pressure, the NCAA is folding, one college at a time, to the fanatics
insistent upon retaining their Indian mascots.

The key letter in NCAA is the "C" for "collegiate." When it comes to
sporting activities, it is the responsibility of the National Collegiate
Athletic Association to work with and respond to the needs and requests of
college students everywhere in America.

This must also include the 36 colleges based upon the sovereign grounds of
the Indian nations. Without exception, every Indian-controlled college in
this country opposes the use of Indians as mascots.

The National Congress of American Indians, representing more than 400
Indian nations, passed a resolution opposing the use of Indians as mascots.
The Seminole Nation of Florida is a member of NCAI.

The National Indian Education Association, representing nearly every
educator, principal, superintendent and student in the country, also passed
a resolution opposing the use of Indians as mascots. Nearly every Indian
nation in America has passed or is intending to pass, similar resolutions.

The representatives of all the Indian nations in North Dakota recently
approved a resolution supporting the NCAA action against the University of
North Dakota by asking that the "Fighting Sioux" nickname be changed. The
resolution calls on the NCAA to deny an appeal by UND seeking an exemption
from the new policy.

Now I ask those who think it is "traditional, cute or their God-given
right" to use human beings as mascots consider the following: The Indian
nations of North Dakota included in its their resolution that the use of
the "Sioux" nickname "promotes an atmosphere of hostility on the campus of
UND that has resulted in numerous ugly incidents including beatings,
vandalism, death threats and other incidents directed toward the American
Indian students on campus and others who advocate for changing the name."
Before a football game last year students from the opposing team held up
posters that read, "The Sioux Suck."

While covering a protest of Native Americans prior to a football game at
the University of Illinois, a college infamous in Indian country for its
Chief Illiniwek mascot, I observed and photographed angry white Illini
students and alumni spitting at and flicking lighted cigarettes at the
Indian protesters. My question then and now is, how can educated people
honor and praise an imitation of an Indian, a white boy dressed in costume,
and be so vile to the real American Indians protesting their use as mascots
for a sports event?

Let's consider some of the arguments I received by mail and e-mail after my
last column on mascots. What about the Fighting Irish? The University of
Notre Dame, in its early days, was composed of many Catholic priests of
Irish heritage. The school mascot was chosen from within by the Irish
priests. At sporting events the "Irish" mascot does not depict the worst
characteristics of the Irish people. The Fighting Irish sports fans are not
waving whiskey bottles in the air as weapons or as a demonstration of a
supposed Irish trait.

Now witness fans at a Florida State University Seminoles game where fake
tomahawks or extended arms are swept up and down for the infamous "Tomahawk
chop." This horrendous replication of violence honors Indians? How?

What about the Minnesota Vikings? There are no more Vikings, part of a
history long gone. Steelers and Packers are professions, and Cowboys are
not an ethnic minority.

For skin color to serve as a mascot is un-American, racist and horribly
ignorant. Look up the word "redskin" in any dictionary and you will find
that the word is an insult to American Indians. Many Indian organizations
consider the word equivalent to the "N" word.

When I appeared on a national call-in radio talk show on mascots I
experienced some of the most pointed hatred I have ever experienced in my
lifetime. I learned that some of the callers claiming Indian blood who were
fully supportive of the use of Indians as mascots were generally from
eastern tribes. When I in turn questioned them about their tribal
affiliations I soon discovered that nearly all of them had been totally
assimilated into the mainstream and spoke as non-Indians rather than as
Indians with deep and lasting ties to their culture, traditions and
spirituality. Most established eastern Indian tribes have also passed
resolutions opposing the use of Indians as mascots.

One talk-show caller, a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, also
informed me that his tribe opposes the use of the "Seminole" name by FSU.

I have a question for the Seminole Tribe of Florida: Why do you allow the
student body of FSU to make T-shirts and sweatshirts that bastardize your
proud name to "Noles"? Do you think the Navajo would sit still if
sweatshirts bearing the name "Ajos" were a college fad?

While the hierarchy of the NCAA is arbitrarily allowing some schools to be
exempted from the recent ruling, I suggest that they at least hear the
other side of the story before caving in wholesale. The powers-that-be at
the NCAA must understand that the majority of American Indians rigidly
opposed the use of Indians as mascots for America's sporting events. If one
or two tribes think it is all right, does that mean they then become the
majority? Isn't this a nation where majority rules?

I suggest that the NCAA poll the faculty and students at the 36 Indian
colleges, then decide whether any college should be exempted from its prior
ruling. The "C" in NCAA stands for "collegiate," not for "collapsing" in
the face of controversy.

Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is president of the Native American Journalists
Foundation Inc. He can be reached via e-mailed at
najournalists@....