Mascot
by Connor Norris
To have a fundamental understanding of America’s relationship with Native American symbols and logos now, we must look back to the birth of America itself and the precedents that were set upon its conception. Philip J. Deloria begins his book Playing Indian by telling the story of the Boston Tea Party. Deloria includes details of how dozens of men whooping and dressed Native American garb overthrew the Boston harbor guards and dumped tea overboard the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver cargo ships. The Boston Tea Party is an event that is widely taught in American elementary schools into high school and collegiate American History courses. However, the fact that the 1773 Boston settlers were disguised in Native American dress is often omitted or overlooked in American schools. From my own schooling experience, the Boston Tea Party has been taught primarily as a catalytic moment of the American Revolution and a grand act of protest emblematic of the phrase, “No taxation without representation.” However, this moment presents a precedent in the earliest stages of America that normalizes dressing up in Native American attire and using Native American symbols as something of costume and adventure, withholding any meaning that is attributed to this clothing by Native American tribes.
These disguises, present at such an impactful moment like the Boston Tea Party, establishes the lasting influence of the misuse and appropriation of Native American materials. Deloria states, “In the national iconography, the Tea Party is a catalytic moment, the first drumbeat in the long cadence of rebellion through which Americans redefined themselves as something other than British colonists” (Deloria 2). Deloria also references DH Lawrence’s take on American identity, claiming that Americans have a sort of identity crisis because of the circumstances that brought them into becoming a country: Lawrence described that “Americans had been continually haunted by the fatal dilemma of ‘wanting to have their cake and eat it too,’ of wanting to savor both civilized order and savage freedom at the same time” (Deloria 3). As Americans fled British rule to establish their own country, there is this unique dichotomy that comes along with this jumping off the cliff but wanting to be able to get back on the cliff.
Inherently, Americans are outlaws, running away from authority, but at the same time the nature of their conception was rooted in vigilant lawmaking in order to prevent a situation like the one they had fled from arising. With this delicate in-between space that Americans are in, dressing up in Native American clothing fell on the side of being totally different than the British, thus creating a somewhat institutional American belief that Native Americans and their respective heritages are to be used as Americans saw fit, as they are a connection to what Americans are hoping for —distance from the British— without actually converting to an entirely new way of life.
As Deloria states, “Playing Indian offered Americans a national fantasy — identities built not around synthesis and transformation, but around unresolved dualities themselves. Temporary, costumed play refused to synthesize the contradictions between European and Indian. Rather, it held them in near-perfect suspension (185)”. It held Americans in limbo in between Europeans who had done so wrong and those who were native to their New World. They embraced neither side so they were not held accountable for being one or the other, landing American settlers in a position that could be financially capitalized upon for generations to come: namely, in the form of mascots, logos, and images used to inspire spirit and belonging for collective organizations or sports teams. These practices of “Playing Indian”, long after the Boston Tea Party, have spanned hundreds of years in its impact, and even as movements to remove these logos from American teams take place in US national sports leagues take place, the process still must go through layers of bureaucracy before physically changing names of sports teams. Additionally, beyond thenamesof the teams, the distant, institutional historical precedent of the use of Native American symbols and logos makes it especially difficult to trim the effects of the precedent that are not as blatant as a football team named the “Washington Redskins”.
Dartmouth:
Locally, we can see our own College’s history with this movement here at Dartmouth; Just over a half-century ago, Dartmouth’s mascot was the “Dartmouth Indians.” After Dartmouth was founded in 1769 with the constitutional principle of educating Native Americans, it was not long until this standard was ignored. As Colin Calloway notes in The Indian History of an American Institution, “By 1969 there were seven or eight Native students on [Dartmouth’s] campus, significantly more than at any time in the previous century” (Calloway 154). In the start of the 1970s, President of the College John Kemeny began a campaign to renew Dartmouth’s original promise:“To achieve his goal of sixty Indians enrolled within four years, Kemeny announced in his inaugural address in March that Dartmouth would enroll fifteen Native students in the class of 1974”, which came as a shock to the community (Calloway 156). With these renewed efforts came protests by students of Native American descent for removing the “Indian” logo’s presence on campus, including on sports jerseys.
The motion to remove this symbol from Dartmouth and its subsequent reactions revealed what is in a mascot on a personal and local scale, both from those supporting and opposing the movement. Calloway compiled sentiments of the time:
“To Arthur Appleton, class of 1936, in Chicago, Dartmouth had ‘changed so much that it is unrecognizable’ to those who had attended ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago; he suggested changing its name to Kemeny College. Ellis Briggs, class of 1921, a former U.S. career ambassador who had returned to live in Hanover, wrote a letter to the Manchester, New Hampshire, Union Leader under the banner headline ‘Goodbye to the Dartmouth Indian.’ It began: ‘The latest sacrifice on the altar of the New Revelation at Dartmouth College is the Dartmouth Indian himself, slain with his own tomahawk and scalped by his own sachems, in the shadow of his own wigwam.’” (Calloway 163).
On the other hand, those in the roles supporting the removal of the “Indian” mascot at Dartmouth responded with sentiments that echo true to this day in the defense of stripping professional teams of their mascots. Michael Dorris, Chair of Native American Studies at Dartmouth at the time, stated that “I would have to explain why it was just as inappropriate for the Caucasian sons and daughters of Dartmouth to play stereotyped Indians (wild, savage, noblehearted and stoic) as it would be if they took it into their heads to be rhythmic Blacks or wealthy Jews” (Calloway 165). He continued, “The symbol became symbolic to all concerned, the issue on which the constituencies of a changing institution slugged out their differences. It was an annual nuisance that wore out me and every other Indian in town, but there was no way we could give up” (Calloway 165). The topic of the mascot became polarizing on campus, as there were separate factions of groups on the same side; many people thought the mascot should stay for different reasons. Some thought that instead of offending, these symbols honored indigenous traditions. Many tied the presence of the mascot to the traditions of “Old Dartmouth”, seeing the removal as the loss of what they once experienced at the school, despite this being, for the most part, a purely optical change. The precedent of wearing Native American garb and using Native American symbols in athletic and spirit wear is, as I have explained, a very old one. At the time of Dartmouth considering its logo removal, they were among the first to take steps to reverse this action of appropriating cultures and turning them into materialistic items.
Finally in 1974, the Dartmouth Board of Trustees rejected the symbol of the Indian as Dartmouth’s mascot. As Calloway writes, “Since Dartmouth had never officially adopted the Indian symbol, it could hardly officially abolish it, but the committee recommended supporting efforts to end it. The Board of Trustees declared that using the symbol in any form was ‘inconsistent with the present institutional and academic objectives of the College in advancing Native American education’” (Calloway 161).
Counter-argument:
In some cases, there are people of Native American descent that do not mind or support the motion for indigenous symbols and logos. In one unique case, Florida State University brokered a deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, where “The STF has cosigned FSU’s mascotting practices for over 40 years, thus providing credibility that most teams and schools simply do not possess” (Black and Billings). However, the objection of this use of the name and likeness of the Seminole by the larger Seminole nation of Oklahoma still raises questions and controversy surrounding Florida State’s use of the Seminole name and mascot for all of their sports teams.
Dr. Anton Treuer, member of the Ojibwe Nation and Professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, gave his perspective in a Twin Cities PBS documentary, explaining how even if one person of indigenous descent might not find the use of an indigenous mascot offensive, this does not encapsulate the sentiments of a whole population of affected people. He described that if one white woman says she doesn't mind being called a “Redneck Woman” such as in the Gretchen Wilson song, that does not give anybody the right to call another white woman a “Redneck Woman” off the basis of one person condoning the term. He stated, “If you can find a Native person who says ‘Redskin doesn’t bother me’, that doesn’t mean you can ignore all the people who say it does.”
Washington:
Moving from our local Hanover history to national and more popular news in recent years, the story of the Washington Football Team (now the Washington Commanders) has been one of the most publicized examples of this issue. In July of 2020, the team agreed to retire its previous name of “The Washington Redskins”. However, there was much progress to be made before this measure finally took place.
In Kevin Bruyneel’s article on the politics of the Washington Football Team case, he notes that founder of the Washington football team George Preston Marshall’s “motivation for giving the team this name derived from his ‘longtime fascination with Native Americans’ and in honor of the identity of his coach, William ‘Lone Star’ Dietz, who was ‘believed to be a Native American,’ from the Sioux Nation, although in all likelihood he was not” (Bruyneel 6). Marshall then went on to perpetuate racist practices by refusing to sign any players of color into the 1960s, even going so far as to say that the team would start signing players of color when the Harlem Globetrotters would sign white players (Bruyneel 6).
The history of this organization begins with racism and held these effects generationally. And they trace themselves back to colonial settler roots. In the Bruyneel text, he argues that the practice of naming mascots after Indigenous symbols and identities is harmful beyond just appropriation:
“The claim that this practice [of the use of the identities and imagery of Indigenous people for team names and mascots] is racist, or a racist slur, is clearly defensible in that the Washington football team is a dictionary-defined slur and a dehumanization of Indigenous people. The problem here is not the charge of racism itself, but that it has become hegemonic in the debate. In so doing, this discourse marginalizes to the point of making invisible the idea and claim that these team names and mascots are persistent practices of settler-colonalism that exist in a constitutive relationship with white supremacy” (Bruyneel 9).
While pursuing the removal of Washington’s offensive team name, many other issues and conversations arise, contributing to the overwhelming task of reversing the harmful American practices of the past (for example, Bruyneel mentions, the General Allotment Act and the Indian Citizenship Act). The Washington Football Team issue prompts countless other arguments to be had and changes to be made, which can all stem back to damaging precedents set at the onset of the United States — not just the Boston Tea Party. With these many different conversations taking place about thousands of different changes, it contributes to awareness of issues. However, it also makes it difficult for large-scale progress to be made, as we have seen in the long road to renaming the Washington Football Team.
The removal of Dartmouth and Washington mascots, on the surface, seem entirely different: one an Ivy League school not known for sports in rural New Hampshire and one a National Football League team in the United States capital. The two cultures are incredibly different and the fan bases differ on degrees of commitment. The profit driven from the Washington Football Team is an ecosystem on its own whereas the Dartmouth athletic program is one factor that makes up a whole college campus. Beyond the fact that both mascots were of Native American symbols and were eventually removed from each team, it might not seem like these two cases are cases that need to be seen together. However, there is a reason beyond ignorance and “just not getting why it’s such a big deal” that ties the two examples together. It’s the idea of local attachment and the resentment of national change that might be the source of pain to those protesting change. The idea that “this is our thing”, and “all we want is the same uniforms, we won’t even look at the logo, or think about it!” is something that is common through local ecosystems. Bigger entities pointing fingers at local situations from outside city walls is tough to digest for those putting their own effort into their own town’s involvement.
However, it is the longstanding precedent set from the first settlers in America that has spanned all these years and created these issues. It is the Native American symbol and mascot that is used for American teams —much more than any other race or nationality—because this was the precedent that was set. As the issues are increasingly being realized, what we see on national news is the big instances of change: large-scale professional and college sports programs. However, other examples (the naming of car models, types of military helicopters, high school mascots) that are less publicized are so difficult to root out because they have been instilled deep into the grains of our institutions in America, beginning with the founders of the country themselves. While America has seen progress in its renaming of some mascots, there are still many cases outside of the spotlight in which appropriation takes place. As the United States began with the practices and grew with the practices, it is incredibly difficult to swiftly change them. However, with the changing of cultural tides and the progress of certain teams changing their logos and mascots, there is increased awareness of the issue. As we gain awareness of this appropriation, the awareness leads to consciousness and the consciousness leads to action. Ultimately, a further understanding drives meaningful action and fosters positive change.
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