Sports and degradation
I’m happy to report that school
board officials in Coachella Valley, California, decided to change
the name and mascot of the high school sports teams. Al-Jazeera
America reported in September that the “Coachella Valley High
School Arabs will now be known as the Mighty Arabs … They also
agreed to change CVHS’ Arab mascot to look less barbaric and more
distinguished.”
The old evil-looking “Mighty Arabs”
logo image and mascot – apparently based on stories from “One
Thousand and One Nights,” also known as “Arabian Nights” –
have been recast, after complaints from Arab-American individuals and
organizations.
Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director
for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the old
mascot is “basically an angry ‘Arab’ head – hooknose, long
beard, headscarf and all.’”
Over many years, officials in charge
of prep and college sports across this country have responded to
complaints about ethnic and racial stereotyping and made changes to
respect diversity. They’ve done the decent and right thing; but
this has not been the case in pro sports. An egregious case of racial
insensitivity is the National Football League, which also has been
coming under attack for its tolerance of players who beat their wives
and children.
I recently read an op-ed article on
the Kansas City Star Web
site about pro sports exploiting American Indian culture. The author,
Hampton Stevens, of Kansas City, argues that the Kansas City NFL
franchise should change the team’s name – they’re the Chiefs
(with an arrowhead logo). He suggests that a change will “make
money for the team. But mostly the Chiefs should change its name
because it’s the right thing to do.”
Stevens writes: “The name ‘Chiefs’
is offensive. Granted, it isn’t as offensive as ‘Redskins’ or
Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indians’ grinning mascot. But, really,
is ‘least offensive stereotype’ where we want to set the bar?”
So, I’m writing about this topic
again ahead of protests in the works for Nov. 2, when the Minnesota
Vikings host the Washington football team at TCF Bank Stadium. I’ve
been writing about the appropriation of American Indian names and
religious symbols by pro sports teams for more than 20 years. The
issue gained a heightened profile in 1991, when the Minnesota Twins
played the Atlanta Braves in the World Series.
Preceding the first game at the
Metrodome, the national TV broadcast featured a short segment about
the controversy over the Atlanta franchise’s use of Indian names.
You’ll recall that when games were played in Atlanta-Fulton County
Stadium, the fans joined en masse in the “tomahawk chop,” which
was accompanied by a faux-Indian musical dirge and drumming.
On the basis of videos you can find on
YouTube, the Atlanta MLB franchise still encourages its fans to do
the tomahawk chop shtick. This is the team that had a mascot dubbed
Chief Noc-A-Homa. The tradition started in Milwaukee, and continued
when the franchise moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966. The most
famous mascot was Levi Walker, Jr. (Odawa), who portrayed the “chief”
from 1969-1985.
According to a story on the ESPN Web
site: “Before each home game, Chief Noc-A-Homa, dressed in Native
American costume, would do a dance on the pitcher’s mound and then
head out to left field where he would watch the game from a tepee set
on a platform in the bleachers. When a Braves player homered, he’d
set off smoke signals and come out of the tepee to do a celebration
dance.
Walker reportedly didn’t understand
why the American Indian Movement (AIM) objected to Chief Noc-A-Homa;
but the team shelved the mascot prior to the 1991 season.
And I’ve written in The Circle
about the Cleveland Indians: I went to the Metrodome many years ago
and interviewed the Indians, the professional baseball players and
some of the Twins about the mascot issue. And I participated in the
protest march to the dome, when Minnesota hosted Super Bowl XXVI, in
1992, which pitted the Buffalo Bills against Washington. Some of the
Washington football fans arrived in outlandish “Indian” garb; I
recall one woman in an expensive-looking white buckskin outfit topped
with a full headdress of red-dyed turkey feathers.
Again, the Washington NFL team is
packaged with a derogatory racial epithet. This team plays its home
games in the capital of the United States, which helps diminish the
nation’s status in the eyes of the world. One of these days, Daniel
Snyder, or whoever happens to own the Washington NFL franchise, will
change the demeaning team name. And the world will keep on spinning;
and we could move on to issues of greater import, as far as our
continued survival on Mother Earth.
