According to many people in the United States, it is sport team names and mascots that depict a certain group of people are considered offensive. People around the United States are trying to get professional sport teams to change their names and mascots because they feel it depicts their certain race in bad way. Teams should have to change their mascot and their name if they are named after a certain group of people. Aside from professional sports teams having offensive names, high school and college teams also have offensive names.
In Greenly, Colorado at the University of Northern Colorado, their mascot is the Fightin’ Reds. Of course, this name sounds very racists, depicting Native Americans in a very harsh manner. Students on the basketball team renamed their team, The Fightin’ Whites. They were trying to depict the 1950’s style of the average American male. Their slogan for their team is “Every thang’s going to be all white. ” By making this new mascot and new slogan, the basketball team was trying to get their city council to talk about the insensitive team mascots that their school, along with thousands of other schools have.
In Eaton, Colorado the people who live there are amazed by all the madness that is going on about the school’s mascot. They are perfectly happy with the mascot, and to them it seems like it would be breaking tradition if someone were to change their mascot. Even though there are many people who hate the school’s mascot and vote for it to be changed, there are also some people who love it and do not want to be changed. Some people think it is a honor for a school’s mascot to be named after their culture. But the number of people for the mascots do not even compare to the number of people opposed to the mascots.
Cart, A12) In Sacramento, California there are crusades to get rid of school’s with Indian team mascots. There are other offensive team mascots aside from Indian mascots as the Imperial Valley College Arabs and the Hollywood High Sheiks. (Bustillo, 1). People from California are trying to pass a bill AB 2115 that would rid public schools of any racial or ethnic groups. (Boghossian, 1). This has been a issue since the late 1960’s. The National Congress of American Indians has been trying to rid team sports from using stereotypes of Native Americans.
Some schools have modified their mascots, rather than changing them all together. San Diego State University changed their mascot of Monty Montezuma from a bare chested macho man to a graceful ambassador. (Cart, 3). Some people feel that school’s named after certain people like Martin Luther King Jr. are alright, but there should not be mascots depicting them. Making mascots that depict certain people is just asking for trouble. When sports are involved with that mascot, things will be said about that mascot that would just be wrong.
Like at a football game when a team is playing another team with a Martin Luther King Jr. mascot, they might have a sign that says “Murder the Kings. ” That is just something that is unacceptable and unrespectable for someone to say. So team mascots should no be able to be named after certain people. Many people do not consider themselves supporting Native American mascots that depict them in a bad manner. But when people walk around with a Atlanta Braves shirt on with a Indian with a tomahawk in his hand, it is degrading to the Indians. It is stereotyping them.
School mascots and Sports team’s mascots are named after groups of people for no reason known. Notre Dame was founded by Irish Catholics, but their sports team was named the Fighting Irish. The name Fighting Irish has nothing to do with the Irish Catholics, it depicts them in a wrong way. (Price, 3). Team names can be changed to similar names that do not depict certain groups of people. Like the Redskins can be called the Red Hawks or the Fighting Irish was be called the Fighting Eagles. These names still have their fierceness of the name without degrading the people they are named after.
Karl Swanson, Redskins vice president said “the name symbolizes courage, dignity and leadership and has always been employed in that manner. ” (qtd in The Indian Wars, 3) Swanson does not see the problem with the Name Redskins, he feels it should honor the Indians who the team was named after. With the change of team names would also mean a change of respect the team gets. If a team was named after someone for 50 years and then all of a sudden they change their name because it is considered offensive to many people, many people might lose respect for that team. A team has a certain dignity that goes along with their mascot.
A change of mascot could mean a loss of people supporting it. Tradition goes along with mascots. It is wrong to mess up tradition. Carol Schwartz, D. C. council member said, “We consider ourselves racially sensitive… for decades we had the Washing Bullets and Abe Pollin on his own changed the name in 1997 because of the high murder rate in D. C. Guess What? The world did not spinning. ” (qtd in Sports The Indian Wars, 4). So just because a team name changes does not mean the violence that goes along with my name, and my feelings toward the teams will change as Schwartz implied.
The world does not adapt to traditions being changed. If the world feels a certain way about something, they will go on feeling that way no matter what happens. Team mascots that depict a certain type of group is wrong and should be changed. It is degrading and hurtful to far too many people to keep them from staying the same. Native Americans or any other race or ethnicity should not be stereotyped in a way that degrades them in any way. All teams that have mascots that are named after a certain race or ethnicity should be changed.
