Sports Commentary August 29, 2005

B & G Imagination Junction


The Sensitivity Of Fighting An Indian War ……………………..




It is so easy to be insulting while so hard to be politically correct.

One of our flaws, as human beings, is to mock—in fact we are quite good at it. We will mock anything or anybody on the slightest whim. There seems to be a gene in each of us that allows us to make fun of as easily as we breathe.

Why people make fun of others is one of those deep complex psychological study questions that are for the research experts to unravel. To attempt to cut to the core I would offer fear as a reason but maybe I am too simplistic.
No matter, since time began, insults have flown and mockery has been routine.

Yet, nothing is forever and succeeding generations have realized some of the errors of their ways and attempted to correct them.

Common words of past generations are taboo today. I need not list the forbidden as you could probably think of, at least, a half dozen or more words or phrases perhaps ordinarily spewed just twenty years ago that one would not dare utter today.

Though insults, mockery and hate always will seem to be around as a species-in some ways-we have grown up if only a little bit.

The cliché can be that we have come far but still have far to go as, after all, mockery seems to still be second nature.

The questions of what is insulting and what is not might seem simple but, sometimes, is as complex as why we mock at all.

In our country a prime example are Indians……I am sorry, Native Americans. See how quickly I seemed to insult and how swiftly I tried to repair the damage and be politically correct?
It was not that long ago that uttering the word Indians raised no eyebrows or ruined no ones dinner. From the time that Europeans began settling the North American continent Indians was the normal way to address those that were here before the white man—no longer. In more recent times Native Americans is more appropriate.

Seemingly everything is symbolic and though it is more accurate to use the latter term it is, also, more respectful as the white man’s treatment of those that lived here long before us has seldom been anything but respectful.
For one, having lived in Arizona the past ten years has made me more respecting of the Native American culture as it exists all about me here and seemingly, in the Western United States, is treated better than elsewhere if hardly far from perfectly.

I must trot forth another overused cliché as a means to insert Native Americans into my normal area of discussion: Sports is a metaphor for life.

Though not in large numbers Native Americans have made their mark, in North American athletics, for over a century. In fact there was sports integration of Native Americans, into the mainstream, before black Americans or Hispanics.

In the lore, of American sports history, the name Jim Thorpe is as well-known as any other—there are still those that would argue that Thorpe is still the greatest of all American athletes ever to come along.

Another commonly accepted tradition has been the naming of athletic teams with Native American references both at the professional and amateur levels of competition.

For nearly one hundred years this was not thought at all degrading or insulting—or, at least, it was not by white Americans.

Yet, as the civil rights movement opened our eyes to how we have acted badly, it was brought to the surface that this practice of calling your favorite team Indians, Braves, Redskins or the like was not such a good thing--we were told this by Native Americans as they flexed their political muscle in a more enlightened time.

It is not just a nickname, that insults the Native Americans, but the mascots used along with the name as embarrassing mockery is mixed with insult with grossly distorted depictions.

Thus, in the past twenty years or so, many colleges and high schools that used any sort of Native American athletic team nickname have dropped them in favor of other less abrasive identities.

At the professional level no club has changed its team name though each, that still use Native American related team monikers, are a bit more sensitive to how the name is portrayed.

So, is it now all peaches and cream between the Native American tribes and sports? Hardly. Efforts are ongoing to get the professional clubs, which use such team names, to change and there are still eighteen major universities that continue with Native American nicknames and mascots.

If one had thought that this political storm had blown out to sea received a shock just a few weeks ago. The governing body of most of America’s collegiate athletics, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, announced that no school that uses a Native American nickname would be allowed to use that nickname or display its mascots in post-season competition in any sport.

Whoa has the fur flied over this one.

Mostly, the howls are loudest at the two largest remaining schools that use such nicknames, The University of Illinois and Florida State University.

FSU has screamed the loudest because they are the mightiest on the totem pole. FSU’s athletic teams are known as the Seminoles, which is a Native American tribe, located both in Florida and Oklahoma.

At home football games the Seminoles have a pre-game ritual that is quite impressive to us white folks but quite insulting to Native Americans.

After the team comes onto the field a student, dressed as a Native American warrior, rides onto the field aboard a beautiful appaloosa horse. The warrior is carrying a flaming spear.

When he and the horse, named War Paint, arrive at the center of the field the warrior thrusts the spear into the turf—even if not an FSU fan it is quite a stunning performance.

This type tradition will not be changed, during the regular season, but nothing of the sort was declared allowable in football bowl games or playoff games in other sports.

In FSU’s case, for example, no television or radio announcer could refer to the team as the Seminoles.

The edict has been made and for now, apparently, will still go into effect with all the affected schools….except one.

The NCAA should have known better than to mess with politics in Florida. FSU brought legal action against the NCAA and have already won—FSU will be exempt from the nickname ban.

For the record, the Seminole tribes in both Florida and Oklahoma are fine with the school continuing to use the nickname and the white kid playing the warrior. A cynic was heard to suggest that a few football tickets, on the fifty-yard line, made everything politically correct.

So, the NCAA is stuck with a decree that has already been dismissed by its strongest affected member yet will still apply to the others—is this fair?

Some Native Americans are not as bent out of shape over athletic teams degrading them as perhaps we are led to believe—in fact, I am guessing that with the myriad other daily problems affecting tribes throughout the country whether the Cleveland Indians or FSU Seminoles pretending that they are one of them does not get discussed at the dinner table.

This twenty-year old campaign, to rid sports of Native American references, does not seem to be a rank and file movement.

Yet, is it a tempest in a teapot? Yes and no might be an accurate reply. Yes because there are so many worse injustices, to Native Americans, than the names of sports teams. No because sports is so high profile and symbolic of life in general.

In the category of they should have left well enough alone the NCAA has opened both a Pandora’s box and a messy can of worms.

As so often happens, by trying to do the right thing something went quite wrong.

I am expecting this new post-season no talking about Native American nicknames or showing mascots and logos to be rescinded within a year if not sooner. FSU has already taken the edict down a few notches and Illinois is yet to step up yet but likely will.

We, as a people, have come as long way and the sensitivity-in principle-is a good one—yet, using sports is not necessarily the means to the end as the do-gooders must realize.

Am I wrong and am I unfeeling because even though I am not an FSU fan I get a rush when I see that spear stuck in the ground? I hope not and I do not think so.

It is not easy to be politically correct sometimes when what is and is not is not clear.

I do not think that I will be more enlightened if next spring I do not hear the word Fighting Illini when watching Illinois in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

We do want to get it right but, this time, the NCAA did not.

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