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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Bill to ban American Indian team names advances |
Current rating: 0 |
by Corey Lyons, CONTRA COSTA TIMES
(No verified email address) |
20 May 2002
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If it becomes law, the state's [California] ethnic-themed monikers would have to go |
For years, students at John Swett High School in Crockett rallied around "Charlie Indian," a tomahawk-wielding figure on the warpath.
While a spirited political dispute led district officials to replace the controversial mascot, the school has kept its nickname: the Indians.
But a bill gathering steam in the state Legislature would make California the first state to purge American Indian-themed mascots from public schools and universities.
The measure, by Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, renews an escalating debate that pits American Indians who feel slighted against students and alumni who want to preserve tradition.
"Most of these school mascots have a long tradition; of course, 100 years ago it was also OK to hunt down and kill California Indian people," said Amber Machamer, a local activist and member of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation.
If it becomes law, AB2115 would force dozens of schools statewide to chase off their cartoon Comanches and replace the culturally sensitive mascots.
Names such as Apaches, Comanches, Chiefs, Braves, Indians and Redskins would have to change.
In addition, a state commission would have the authority to outlaw additional names it considers "derogatory or discriminatory" against any race, ethnicity or nationality.
The bill was approved last week in its final committee test before going to the Assembly floor.
In the Bay Area, the measure would drop the curtain on several local mascots, including the Vallejo High School Apaches and, possibly, the Ygnacio Valley High Warriors.
"I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings ... It might be easier to just change the name," said John Angell, who graduated from John Swett High in 1989 and now coaches the football team.
Angell, who played football for the Indians and wore a depiction of an arrowhead on his helmet, said the helmets last year were kept blank out of respect for American Indian concerns.
"This year we're going to just put an S on the helmets for 'Swett,'" he said. "Our helmets will look like Stanford (University)'s."
Stanford, in fact, delivered an early symbolic victory for American Indians when it decided to ditch its Indian nickname in favor of the cardinal three decades ago.
The war over the issue has raged for years.
The protests of Charlene Teters at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the late 1980s, fueled a national debate over Indian sports names and mascots.
Nonetheless, the university's team name is still the Fighting Illini, after an old Midwest Indian Confederation.
And the school mascot remains Chief Illiniwek, a wildly controversial figure who emerges from stadium tunnels during football games and rouses thousands of fans with a tribal dance.
The future of the buckskin-clad mascot, though, is clouded. Last June, campus officials imposed tighter restrictions on the use of his image for marketing purposes.
"Picture a mascot for whom everyone stands in silence while the mascot performs. It's amazing. It's not racist," said Bill Murphy, associate chancellor for public affairs at Illinois.
"I think it may be the way in which he is taken so seriously that causes the anti-Chief folks to get so worked up."
Indian rights activists, however, say mascots such as Chief Illiniwek are humiliating and degrading depictions of a culture that still struggles for respect.
In Pleasanton, Harvest Park Middle School is taking an early lead by switching its Indian-themed Warriors nickname and mascot to the Patriots.
The change, which goes into effect in the fall, was initiated two years ago as students were working on an art project to help symbolize their school mascot and American Indians started raising some interesting questions.
"They started asking, 'Who did the (mascot) represent?' It's not Navajo. It's not Apache. It's not Cherokee," Principal Jim Hansen said. "It became a caricature rather than something honoring Native Americans, which was the intent."
Students are split over the campus name and mascot overhaul.
"If we're not directly offending Indians in some way, I see it as a compliment to have the school named after an ethnic race or background," said Matt Jackson, a Harvest Park eighth-grader.
American Indian activists think otherwise.
"I understand that people aren't doing it to offend us," said Machamer of the Chumash Tribe. "They honestly believe they're honoring American Indians ... But they're misinformed and ill-advised."
Local crusades to educate the public about the negative stereotypes have scored important victories in recent years.
Nationwide, district officials have crossed out Redskins and Chiefs from school campuses, from Luling Elementary School in Louisiana to Lowell High in San Francisco.
In 1997, the Los Angeles school district banned American Indian mascots.
And in a significant boost to the current legislation, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in April 2001 called for an end to Indian team names and mascots at non-Indian schools.
Dean Colombo, a student council adviser at John Swett, advised a student-led protest in 1998 to remove the school's Indian mascot. But the school board voted against a change.
Now, he thinks that AB2115 can finally sweep the John Swett Indians into the history archives.
"I think it's very similar to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954: We'll find that people will reflect later that this is the right thing to do."
Copyright 2002 CONTRA COSTA TIMES |
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http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/
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