Group pushes for state law banning Native American mascots
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SEATTLE - There's a new statewide push to end the use of Native American mascots in public schools.
It's a battle that's been going on for years, but now a group is calling on Washington state to take immediate action. The Seattle Human Rights Commission passed a resolution Friday urging the state to step up and put an end to these potentially offensive namesakes.
Across the state, many high school athletes still wear uniforms with Native American symbols, but the commission wants to ban the tradition.
Chris Stearns of the Seattle Human Rights Commission says the use of the mascots in public schools creates a negative social identity and stereotypes the culture. He says it can even cause low self-esteem among young natives.
"There's really no parallel outside of the non-Indian realm," says Stearns. "When they go to games and they're playing another team, usually the fans on the other side - they're pretty creative. They're smart kids, and they come up with all sorts of ways to make fun of the tomahawks, the Indians, the warriors. etc."
At least 30 schools across the state use some kind of Native American reference when it comes to a mascot even though the state Board of Education passed a resolution in September encouraging public schools to voluntarily stop using Native American mascots, logos and names.
"I think that people like tradition, and I think that people don't really understand how offensive this can be, and I think there's just an educational process," says Stearns.
Nearly 10 years ago, Issaquah High School changed its mascot from the "Indians" to "Eagles" after concerns were raised about offending the Native American culture.
In Oregon, Native American mascots are now banned. Schools have five years to phase out the symbols.
Stearns is hopeful more Washington state schools will be forced to get on board.
"Our hope is that things do change. America is always evolving, it's always changing," he says.
The Seattle Human Rights Commission is now trying to find a state legislator to sponsor a bill that would ban Native American mascots in public schools.
It's a battle that's been going on for years, but now a group is calling on Washington state to take immediate action. The Seattle Human Rights Commission passed a resolution Friday urging the state to step up and put an end to these potentially offensive namesakes.
Across the state, many high school athletes still wear uniforms with Native American symbols, but the commission wants to ban the tradition.
Chris Stearns of the Seattle Human Rights Commission says the use of the mascots in public schools creates a negative social identity and stereotypes the culture. He says it can even cause low self-esteem among young natives.
"There's really no parallel outside of the non-Indian realm," says Stearns. "When they go to games and they're playing another team, usually the fans on the other side - they're pretty creative. They're smart kids, and they come up with all sorts of ways to make fun of the tomahawks, the Indians, the warriors. etc."
At least 30 schools across the state use some kind of Native American reference when it comes to a mascot even though the state Board of Education passed a resolution in September encouraging public schools to voluntarily stop using Native American mascots, logos and names.
"I think that people like tradition, and I think that people don't really understand how offensive this can be, and I think there's just an educational process," says Stearns.
Nearly 10 years ago, Issaquah High School changed its mascot from the "Indians" to "Eagles" after concerns were raised about offending the Native American culture.
In Oregon, Native American mascots are now banned. Schools have five years to phase out the symbols.
Stearns is hopeful more Washington state schools will be forced to get on board.
"Our hope is that things do change. America is always evolving, it's always changing," he says.
The Seattle Human Rights Commission is now trying to find a state legislator to sponsor a bill that would ban Native American mascots in public schools.
The Seattle Human Rights Commission. Stupid is as stupid does.
What about all those other oppressed minority peoples like Vikings? How about generic oppressed minorities like Warriors? (and yes, Warriors are oppressed. Look and see what happens if someone brings a Warrior weapon to school!) And how about those without human voice, like Eagles, Mustangs or Orcas?
Please, can we get some guidance here? Is it OK to name a sports team after a flower, like the Pansies? Would the maligned gardeners object?
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Maybe we should just remove all references to Native Americans from maps (rivers, city names, street names, states, etc.). Let's remove them from the history books, museums, web pages, and all government documents. We want to be politically correct now, don't we Seattle?
In response I want to demand that any mascot of any other people should be banned as well and the idiots who started this has to pick up 100% of the costs of changes. No more spartans, samurai, knights, barons, etc because apparently people are too stupid and get butthurt too damn easily
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Seems to me like it's time to teach kids more tolerance. It's getting to the point where there isn't to much left that doesn't offend someone and the list just keeps growing. Perhaps these teams were named to reflect the culture in a positive light. I can't imagine adopting a mascot that would be something the kids wouldn't be proud of or that they felt reflected badly on their school.
Ok, my ancestry is English /Scots /Swedish. I primarily identify myself with the Swedish 'Viking' side of things. People get the 'viking' thing wrong all the time... horns on helmets, Ragnar the Minn. Vikings mascot and his fur diaper, etc, etc, so on, so forth. When we're done with that, we can start disassembling the bulldung associated with being of Scots descent.
I can, to a certain extent, understand the Native American issues on this, but I personally don't find 'Indians' to be offensive. 'Redskins', yes. 'Braves', no. Redskins is a racial perjorative. It's kind of like naming a baseball team 'the Peoria Pickaninnies'. 'Braves' implies courage and ferocity in war, an asset in a sports team. 'Indians' is a neutral term, simply an identifier.
The mascots can certainly change. If I were of woodlands tribe descent, the Cleveland Indian's Chief Wahoo would be pretty offensive. But is the USC Trojan *really* a Trojan? No, he's not. Neither is Ragnar the Viking or any one of a hundred other mascots.
Yes, the Native community needs more positive references in our culture, more positive role models. But simply labelling something as blanketly offensive and wiping reference of an ancestry from our culture is a mistake.
 @svensson I am Icelandic and Swedish, and I take no offense to any inaccurate portrayals of vikings.
@Smashquail Neither do I, by and large. I'm just pointing out that people's impression or the popular view of Scandinavian culture is most often wrong. Same goes with being Scots.
I used those references to point out that Native Americans are not the only culture that America's popular media has warped more than a little.
How is it an Honor? People Dressing up like "Natives"? Wearing Turkey feathers, "war Paint", acting a fool whooping it up! Thats not an Honor? If thats an Honor lets honor the Blacks wear black face, wear Afros wigs. Its not an honor its a disgrace!
This is so dumb. Quit whining. Think of it as an honor (that you apparently don't deserve) and move on with life.Â
This is over the top stupid.
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I always thought the Apache attack helicopter was a huge tribute to Native Americans.
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What is wrong with honoring the natives of this land?Â
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Stupid over sensitive drivel.
Seattle Christian Schools' mascot is the Warriors. It has NOTHING to do with Native American culture and EVERYTHING to do with "Standing Strong in the Faith of God". The mascot is pictured as a "white male in battle gear".
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I suppose someone wants to ban that because the male is not of multiracial colored skin? Give me break.
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It's like when a group of people demanded King County change their logo to "honor" Martin Luther King Jr because they believed that's what the county was named after. WRONG. Naming "king county" had NOTHING to do with MLK.
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So, like with the issue regarding mascots... we're taking it to extremes here. No matter what is done, someone seems to find some sort of offense. Well, guess what? My culture happily wishes people "Merry Christmas" but ohhhhh no. Can't use that term anymore. This PC stuff is really getting annoying.
 @newsreader 'It's like when a group of people demanded King County change their logo to "honor" Martin Luther King Jr because they believed that's what the county was named after. WRONG. Naming "king county" had NOTHING to do with MLK.'
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I remember when they changed 'Empire Way' to 'MLK Jr Way'. Did they consider the cost to all of the business people in terms of stationery, business cards, advertising, etc., etc. No, they didn't... and I also wondered why they changed 'King County's' logo from the Crown...
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Don't get me wrong ~ Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man who did great things, but I don't see a correlation between the two names.
@G one @newsreader I'm sure if offends the hell out of a lot of the People's Republic of King County to find out that King County was originally named after William Rufus King, a slaveholding political supporter of President Franklin Pierce, for whom Pierce county is named. King had served in Congress, the State Department for most of his life and helped to draft the Compromise of 1850. His politics were, for the time, moderate in that he supported a Union that included slavery and did not support sucession by the more firebrand Southern states. As Vice President, he attained the highest level of elected office of anyone from the states of Alabama or North Carolina. He died as Vice President, having taken ill that winter and only served three weeks in the office. He was widely memorialized at the time as a servant of the people and as a statesman.
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Appropos of nothing whatever, Martin Luther King Jr. visited King County for all of two days in November of 1961.
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Kind of amazing the stuff you find out when you look into what was involved with the re-write of history, isn't it?
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@G one -- EXACTLY!!!!
I agree, all native American names should be removed from use. It must be very demeaning to have something named after parts of their culture. Seattle should revert to it's original name New York and any statues or other landmarks should be removed. Salish Sea should remain Puget Sound. All rivers, mountains and landmarks will be renamed. History should be re-written to remove words like Braves, Warriors, Aztecs, Fighting Irish....oops.   Â
As an Irish American, I am not offended by ND's mascot. Â I am honored by it. Â
I think that changing school names or mascots are way down the list of things that need to be done to put Native Americans in a positive light. Â
I would be more honored to have a school or a mascot named after a part of my culture, rather than a casino.
 @KRM66 According to 31F's post below (yes I did read it) there was a group that fought to get rid of the fighting Irish mascot. I see that didn't work.
Ah America. Rewrite history to appease a few; pass laws against "words" that might offend the newly offended; pretend that half the country does not mooch off the other half.Â
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Soon your neighbor will dictate what you wear, your hairstyle, and the color of your home.
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Everyone comes to America for FREEDOM. They do not flock in these numbers to any other.Â
I can definitely see how a team name like Redskins, Red Devils or Redmen can be offensive and should probably be dropped. But names like Warriors, Chiefs, Aztecs, Braves, etc. don't seem any more offensive than names like Vikings, Fighting Irish, Celtics, Knights, Spartans, Saints, etc. Names like Warriors and Chiefs are more generic words whose meaning isn't confined to a single culture.
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Methinks that much of this is a tempest in a teapot.
What tribe is Chris Stearns from?
It must be almost sexual; that lust to force your views on others. That masturbatory glow at finding your name in the paper, or seeing yourself on the nightly news raging at the supposed injustice you used to arouse your following. Imagine the almost orgasmic thought of the local team changing its name and knowing you were the one who will the credit for it.Â
I always thought that naming my team after someone or somebody was an HONOR! Â How can anyone possibly construe this as dishonorable? Â The politically correct language police are out of control AGAIN!
How about the Seahawks? Should we ban their name and logo too?
Chief Leschi school calls themselves the warriors a proud name that Mr Stearns would like changed. Of course military services members are also called warriors so just think of these honorable people when cheering on your team.
Enjoy:Â http://www.nativecircle.com/mascots.htm
At the end of that essay there was a slideshow. A slideshow of different mascots. And I couldn't help but notice that the Florida State Seminoles logo was in it. The Seminole tribe actually signed off on FSU using that name. They actually like that they use it.
@31F there are alot bigger problems on most of the reservation, than this shhhtuff
a variety of Native American mascots were shown to different groups of college student respondents. Afterward, students were asked to write about what their life would be like in one year. Those Native American students exposed to mascots were significantly less likely to use achievement-related language in anticipating their future than were students in a control condition. That is, having seen and read about mascots, Native Americans became less likely to make achievement-related predictions for themselves regarding good grades, graduating, finding a job, etc.
I think your statistics, along with your story are either false or were skewed to the outcome preferred by the group doing the testing. I lean heavily to BS on your part. Â
 @31F when in college we did studies in pol.sci on doing polls to prove that you can get any answer you want by the way you ask the question and it worked
 @31F What other kinds of statements did they make about themselves? Were they positive or negative (or were the experimenters actually qualified to tell?) And in the final analysis, this all indicates...what?
 @JLS1950  @31F That is kind of what I was thinking, I've always hated these kinds of studies because they are very uncontrolled and there are many other factors that can signal a positive or negative reaction.
researchers presented high school respondents with various passages and images related to Native Americans. After reading about mascots (and seeing Chief Wahoo), Native American respondents scored lower on an individual self-esteemquestionnaire, as well as a measure of their sense of community worth (i.e., feelings of respect and a sense of value towards Native Americans). In fact, scores for self- and community-worth were even lower among students who had seen Chief Wahoo than they were among those who read about the common depiction of Native American communities as suffering from high rates of alcoholism, suicide, and teen pregnancy.
 @31F I really have no opinion on this topic one way or the other but the pseudo 'science' study is one thing I do dislike.  You quote a 'study' and make the correlation that this is 'the' cause of all these ills.  If we follow your logic eliminate the mascots all the problems are gone.
@31F these researchers really don't seem to have a clue, a mascot has nothing to do with those problems. growing up we didn't care about trivial stuff like that. they also complain about the Cleveland Indians hat logo, see alot of kids on the Rez wearing them.
Ok fine change the names BUT the people that want to have the names changed need to be the ones to pay for EVERYTHING that will have to be changed- signs, murals, tshirts and other clothes all the kids who will continue to go there already have, etc.Â
@MomOf2 You have a great point that most people do not think of. To appease the minorities in King County, it cost over a million dollars (that they told us about - probably more) to change all the logos on vechicles and stationaries to make it look more like Martin King instead of Vice President King.
 @MomOf2 Dont forget the Letterhead and logos
@Susabelle @MomOf2 Schools definitely have the money to be changing all of that stuff.
i feel good to be reminded of the Indian that once where and i have faith in the ones that r left. why erase what little reminders we have left?
A new law is seldom the answer to anything. The citizens in this state prefer freedom to new laws all the time.
Their going to have to rename Seattle then as its insulting Indian Chiefs
What do the Natives think? As a Onondaga-French-Polish American it does not bother me a bit.
Here we freekin go again !!!  the PC police is on patrol again !!! I saw a poll a couple of years ago and ,9999 % of the school Indian or not wanted to keep their mascot name, now we've got a bunch of PC police trying to overturn the will of the students. Another case of .0000000000000001% trying to over ruling the majority .999999999999999%. Just for once lets just tell this .000000000001% to go sit on their thumb and shut the XXxx up.
 @lmdk2 There is no such thing as 9999%.  It's 99% of a whole, which is 100%.  Hmm, that's funny, I saw a poll where 99% of Native Americans were offended, and 1% was not.Â
Polls are statistics - and you know what Mark Twain said bout those:
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There are lies, DAMN lies, and then there are statistics.
 @LocalLady LOL, my Stats prof. always said............Statistics never lie, and liars always use statistics....
 @31F  @lmdk2 thats odd i would like to see this poll becouse working at the eqc on the res they could care less in my unoffical poll today at work
 @31F  @lmdk2 Please post the poll as my Native buddies could care less.
 @31F Wrong !! There sure is >999999999999999999999999%, just like there is . 000000000000000001%. simple math. look it up.
It looks like the Seattle Human Rights Commission is a government organization. That makes sense since the government always knows what's best for us no matter how we vote. http://www.seattle.gov/humanrights/ Here is his profile from the website.
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"Chris Stearns is from the Navajo Nation and practices Native American law with Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker LLP. He helped co-found Native Vote Washington, a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to increase the size and power of the Native vote in Washington.
Chris has spent his career working in Native American public policy and has served as Indian Affairs Director under Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, Democratic Counsel to the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources under Chairman George Miller, Deputy Counsel to the U.S. House Native American Affairs Subcommittee, North Dakota State Campaign Director for Vice President Al Gore, and Political Advisor to Tex Hall, President of the National Congress of American Indians.
Chris also has served on the Boards of the Clinton-Gore Alumni Association and the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Chris occasionally writes columns and articles for the newspaper Indian Country Today. Chris is a graduate of Williams College and Cornell Law School."
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 @parkinator this is being put up to the governments approval - Indians ? by people able to get the government to ok this... what makes u think the government woulds even think like this?
 @parkinator Guess now we have to rename ALL the ferries. Or what ????
 @lmdk2  @parkinator Starting with not calling them ferries anymore, because that's a synonym of an anti-gay slur? :^D (Not that there's anything wrong with that...)
 @MargeGunderson Reminds me of that old joke where one gay man responds to another, "FERRY boats! I knew were were powerful, but I never DREAMED we had our own NAVY!!!"
 @MargeGunderson  @parkinator no I did it on purpose, this is "progressive and enlightened " Western SaWa you should know.
 @parkinator And that gives him the right to over turn the will of the students ???????????????
 @parkinator Oh wait a minute, just think of all the towns and cities we have to change the names of, this could turn out to be fun. Lets see, what's a good name for Spokane, how bout Spokaloo, that's what half the people call it anyway and we could have a ball renaming Puyallup !!
 @lmdk2  @parkinator We could call it Pail-up.......that is how my out of town relatives pronounce it...
 @lmdk2  @parkinator "Fairtown!"
 @parkinator GOVERNMENT organization! THAT explains the total stupidity!!! Thanks parkinator :)