Leave Indian Mascots Alone

Yesterday on Blog of Ages there was a post by Lyn Ellen Lacy on Should sports ban Indian mascots? It was a very well thought out and fair description of the move to wipe our the use of Indian names and images from sports programs everywhere. I recommend that everyone read it. I am about to give my opinion on why the answer should be "No."

Four hundred or so years ago when Europeans began to come to America, they found indigenous tribes of what they called "Indians" already occupying the lands here. The name "Indians" is a misnomer, of course. The ancestors of the tribes had crossed the Bering Straits some 12,000 years before from eastern Siberia, but the Europeans didn't know this, and thinking they were in or near India, the name "Indians" stuck.

The Indians, having been here for eons had developed many different languages and customs. Some were farmers, many were hunter gatherers. They had a number of different ways that they governed themselves. They had varying religious practices, war dances, diets, and so on.

As with all human migrations throughout history, as more Europeans came to these shores, the Indians were forced away from ancestral grounds. This is nothing new. It has been going on since before the Cro-Magnons forced the Neanderthals out of Europe and the Middle East, which eventually led to their extiction. It is going on now as we see almost unfettered migration into the southwestern United States across its border with Mexico.

There were lots of battles and a great deal of diseases such as smallpox and measles here in this country, which eventually led to the decimation of the Indian populations, and the movement of them to reservations. Nobody that reads about the numerous tragedies that took place in the period can be anything but sad about what happened to the Indians. They were proud people, but could not hold up against the superior forces of the European immigrants.

They are the only group in the United States that have greater rights than others.

Many geographical locations in the United States have Indian or Indian related names: states, cities, towns, streets and streams; and then there are high school, college and professional sports teams. We have Indians, Braves, Seminoles, Chiefs, Warriors, and on and on. None of this is, or should be considered and insult to our Native Americans.

Who in the world would consider that the naming of a team or its mascot after something Indian would be insulting or offensive? People name those things for something that is strong and respected, not something they wish to belittle or insult. The only college team I know of that has named its team after something less than stellar is the University of Oklahoma, who call their teams the "Sooners." Those, as you might remember, were the people who cheated to steal land when the Indian Territory in Oklahoma was opened to settlement.

I can certainly understand someone or some group being offended or insulted when names or labels are used toward them in a pejorative manner. We should all be quick to condemn that sort of thing.

But the use of Indian related images by college and other sports teams is more complimentary than anything, and is certainly not pejorative.

There are a lot of people in this country that seem to want to continue to be victims rather than join the rest of us. Many groups that have come to this country and those that were already here have certainly been victimized for some periods, and that is sad. We should certainly remove and fight unlawful discrimination that we have.

But sports mascots? Give me a break. Some folks just need to turn their energies toward working, learning, living, and being a part of this nation instead of continuing to dwell on their victimhood.

Musings

In perusing around the New York Times the last couple of days, I ran across a couple of articles that caught my eye. The first, The Evangelical Crackup is about the apparent move toward the political center by many of the so-called "Christian Right." It is an interesting article and I recommend that you read it, although I don't neccessarily agree with all of it.

My view of it all is that the "Christian Right" was never really represented by the Falwells and Dobsons and Robertsons of the nation. As a Christian, and a Republican, I never was, and I don't think a huge number of others were, either. Many of the issues were shared, to be sure, but the apparent extremism never was. The fact that Christians voted the same way had more to do with their own values than a unity behind those people.

In spite of what the Times says, I think that those values still exist. What they are seeing is that like most of the country, many Christians are closer to the political center than to the so-called hard right (or left), and there are other issues than abortion and other purely religious issues that govern their voting choices. We see that with the polls that show many in the group support Rudy Giulani or Romney, and some even support Obama or Hillary. My prediction is that a big majority will remain right of center, however.

The other article was For Retiring Republicans, Several Explanations . This is a pretty benign article, probably just filler for the paper, but it had one quote that I noticed, and I want to speak to the issue raised.

Deborah Pryce, and republican Congresswoman from Ohio is retiring, and, among other things, told the Times:

“I don’t think anything will change until Americans revolt and get it into their heads that they need to be informed voters instead of just listening to the paid political ads,” she said.

This was in response to the high amount of negative political ads in political campaigns, and to the fact that they apparently work.

Unfortunately, she is right about that. But the problem goes even deeper. Many voters only vote for a party with no further analysis. Others never know more than what they learn from the 20 second sound bites that the TV networks choose to run. Few voters pay attention to the issues more than superficially, and have no real knowledge about any of the candidates or the potential effects of their proposed policies.

In other words, voters are their own worst enemies. We all complain that the government really doesn't represent our views, but few of us bother to participate in the process, even if that only means studying the issues and the candidates. So we get what we deserve, most of the time.

Maybe it will take Ms. Pryce's "revolution" to wake us up. I wonder what the wake-up call will finally be? If any.

Character flaws

In my meanderings around the Internet today, I came across an article In US News and World Report entitled Reflections and Regrets. ( via RealClearPolitics )It is about Gerald Ford, his new book, and his relationship with Richard Nixon, and written by Thomas DeFranks. It is a very good article, and brought back memories of the times in the early 1970s. Most of those times were troubled, due in large part to Nixon's character.

It also has reminded me that for all of the criticism of him, Gerald Ford was an honest man. Those are very hard to find in Washington these days.

One of the paragraphs that stood out was, to me, descriptive of a number of our leading politicians, including the current occupant of the White House:

"....Stubborn. "I think now as I did then, that in the area of foreign policy, he was as good if not better than any president I've known. [But] he had a character flaw: where even when he made a mistake and knew it, he would not admit it. Why? That I've never known, Tom. It was a stubbornness, self-righteousness that was just a damn shame."(My emphasis)

This is a failure that gets a lot of our leaders. One would wish they would learn, but they won't.

Read the whole article. Its a good one.