8063: Unbearable Mascots.

From The New York Times…

Controversy Over Mascots at Ole Miss

By Robbie Brown

Colonel Reb, meet your replacement.

On Thursday, the University of Mississippi announced the successor to its former mascot, a white-goateed, cane-toting Southern plantation owner that many have criticized as racist and anachronistic. The new mascot? The Rebel Black Bear.

Supporters of the old mascot were quick to find flaws. For one, an artist’s design shows a brown bear, not a black one. The animal was chosen based on the short story “The Bear” by William Faulkner, himself a former student, in which a bear is killed. Not exactly inspiring on the football field. And how original is a bear mascot?

“There are many, many other schools with bears — U.C.L.A., Maine, Brown,” said Brian Ferguson, a 2007 graduate and the director of the Colonel Reb Foundation, a group that supports bringing back the old mascot, which was retired from sporting event sidelines in 2003. “We might as well be called P.C.U. — Politically Correct University.”

School administrators say they want to balance tolerance with tradition at Ole Miss (itself a nickname for a slave owner’s wife). The school has discouraged Confederate battle flags at football games, discontinued “Dixie” as the unofficial fight song and raised enrollment of black students to 14 percent, from 5.8 percent in 1995 (though Mississippi is nearly 40 percent black).

Fans are divided over whether the university has become more open-minded or just too conscious of its reputation beyond the South. The committee of students that picked the mascot said it hoped to avoid any racial significance in the design. One finalist had gray-colored skin because, said Margaret Ann Morgan, 19, a committee co-chairwoman, “it is a combination of black and white.”

The Rebel Black Bear won an online poll this month, with support from 62 percent of students, alumni, staff and faculty members and season ticket holders. That beat the two other finalists: Hotty Toddy (a muscular man named after the school cheer) and the Land Shark (an allusion to the football team’s “voracious” defense).

As for Colonel Reb, his fans are not surrendering. The Colonel Reb Foundation’s leaders will dress in replicas of his costume and tour the state next week, talking to members of the local news media and trying to reverse the school’s decision. “We’re not giving up,” Mr. Ferguson said. “The Rebel Black Bear is just not the tradition we’re used to at Ole Miss.”

8035: Cheering New Law On Race-Based Mascots.

From USA TODAY…

Wis. law lets residents challenge race-based mascots

By Judy Keen, USA TODAY

KEWAUNEE, Wis. — The homecoming pep rally Friday at Kewaunee High School will have extra drama this year: Everyone in town will learn whether they’ll be rooting for the River Bandits or the Storm to beat the Valders Vikings in the big football game.

The selection of a new nickname is the culmination of a sometimes painful few months in this town of 2,745. Under a new state law meant to eliminate race-based nicknames, logos and mascots, a complaint prompted the Kewaunee School District to drop the “Indians” name that had been in use here since 1936.

“This has been a tough time,” says Sandi Christman, who chaired a committee that got the whole community involved in the selection of a new name and mascot. “It’s like losing a friend.”

To ease the sting, the school board decided to seek suggestions from students and residents. Almost 200 ideas were submitted. The 13-member committee, which included four students, narrowed the list to six: River Bandits, Storm, Cougars, Hawks, Knights and Huskies.

At least 1,400 votes were cast in community-wide balloting that chose the two finalists, River Bandits and Storm. The winner was chosen by the district’s 1,030 students. The district has few Native American students.

Some people aren’t ready to give up the old name. A popular shirt for sale here reads, “Once an Indian, always an Indian.”

Law first of its kind
A state law that took effect in May allows school district residents to lodge complaints against race-based names. The Department of Public Instruction holds a hearing before the state superintendent decides whether to bar the usage. Districts can argue that a name isn’t discriminatory if they have a tribe’s approval.

In June, retired Kewaunee teacher Marsha Beggs Brown filed a complaint. The Kewaunee School Board intended to fight it, says President Brian Vogeltanz, but changed its mind on the eve of the hearing and decided to voluntarily drop the name. The district has a year to remove Indians signs from school premises.

“Respect for all people — that was my motivation,” says Beggs Brown. “There’s just no refuting that these names harm children.” Some people here support her decision, she says, but “I’ve also gotten a couple of anonymous letters and anonymous phone calls, and there are people who don’t speak to me.”

In 2005 the NCAA prohibited the use of Native American nicknames, mascots and imagery in postseason competition. Wisconsin’s law is the first of its kind.

Department of Public Instruction spokesman Patrick Gaspar says it has received three complaints. Osseo-Fairchild schools were ordered to drop their Chieftains nickname. A complaint against the Mukwonago Chieftains is pending. There’s been no complaint in Auburndale, but it is forming a committee to look into changing its Apache nickname.

Last week Kewaunee defeated the Mishicot Indians. Mishicot has permission from Michigan’s Hannahville Potawatomi to use the name because the town is named for a chief from that tribe.

Barbara Munson, chair of a Wisconsin Indian Education Association task force on mascots and logos, says about 30 school districts use Indian names and about 30 dropped them voluntarily. The issue, she says, “is a failure of mainstream American culture to deal with stereotyping.”

Mixed reaction
Jesse Steinfeldt, an Indiana University psychology professor who has studied the effects of the nicknames and mascots, says they create “a racially hostile education environment that … can affect the self-esteem of Native American kids.”

Councilman Brandon Stevens of the Oneida Nation, the tribe closest to Kewaunee, wishes the Legislature had banned all Indian nicknames. But, he says, “as long as there’s debate, there’s an avenue for education.”

People here say it’s hard to give up the Indians tradition. “People are upset,” says Tim Selner, 37, a truck driver and 1992 graduate. “It’s always been part of us.”

The use of Indian imagery and names “is a tribute,” says Shirley Brusky, who left school to marry a year before she would have graduated in 1955. “We were proud to be called an Indian.”

Kewaunee senior Libbie Delebreau, 18, says the change is necessary “if the Indians feel it is offensive … but it’s sad that we have to lose our mascot in my last year of high school.”

She hopes River Bandits will be the new name, but says, “We will be cheering on whoever we are.”

Essay 4937

With all the recent hoopla surrounding Native Americans as mascots, it seemed peculiar that Natural American Spirit cigarettes would use the puffing chief for a logo. The artsy packaging—with the bird and graphic patterns—pushes the cultural imagery pretty hard. It’s a wonder the manufacturer resisted naming the smokes Native American Spirit.

Despite being acquired by Reynolds American in 2002, the brand is produced by the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, which brags about actually donating portions of profit to Native American causes. Plus, the company appears to have strong commitments to eco-friendly endeavors. And they even boast honest and straightforward communication, insisting on responsible marketing. Or at least as responsible as one can be with a product designed to kill people.

It’s hard to criticize the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company’s sincerity. At the same time, it sure feels hypocritical when tobacco manufacturers hype philanthropy and humanitarianism.

Essay 4930

From The Washington Post…

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For Cheyenne Woman, It Still Hurts to Hail the Home Team

By Courtland Milloy

These are the times that try Suzan Harjo’s Cheyenne soul.

Her lawsuit claiming that the name “Redskins” denigrates Native Americans appears to have stalled in the courts. Several tribal elders who were among her staunchest allies recently died. And everywhere she looks, the dreaded name and logo of Washington’s professional football team are in full bloom.

“It’s sad because I’m outside the fellowship of good feeling,” Harjo, a District resident and president of a Native American advocacy organization, told me recently. “I want to support the home team. But it’s very hard when they are carrying a racist name.”

Fans, it seems, couldn’t care less. They are on the “warpath,” all but drowning out Harjo’s concerns with cheers for a team that’s headed for the National Football Conference playoffs. Owner Dan Snyder says the name is an honorific, not a slur, and has vowed not to change it.

But what Snyder won’t do, Harjo is hoping the courts will.

In 1992, she and six other Native Americans petitioned the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel federal trademark protections of the Redskins name. Expert witnesses testified that the use of Indians as sports mascots adversely affected the self-esteem of Native American children. It was bad enough, they argued, that the Indian population had been targeted for genocide. To now caricature and stereotype the survivors only added insult to injury.

“Regardless of what non-Native people claim the word means, for us it refers to Indian scalps taken by European bounty hunters,” Harjo said. “It’s the effect of the word on those who see and hear it that matters, not the intention of those who use it.”

A three-judge panel of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agreed and ruled in Harjo’s favor. But a federal judge later reversed the decision, siding with claims by Pro-Football Inc. that there was no proof that Native Americans are offended by the name and saying that even if they were, they should have complained in 1967, when the federal trademark was granted.

Harjo appealed. And now, with the case in its 16th year, she must try hard to keep the faith. Another plaintiff in the case, Vine Deloria Jr., a Lakota and intellectual force behind the movement against Indian mascots, died last year. His 1969 book, “Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto,” addressed Indian stereotypes and challenged white audiences to take a closer look at the underhanded ways the West was really won.

Vernon Bellecourt, a Lakota and president of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media, died in October. A fiery activist and eloquent spokesman for Indian rights, he didn’t mince words when referring to Washington’s home team: “Start playing football and stop playing Indian,” he’d say.

Harjo’s spirits were lifted in 2006, when six young Native Americans filed a lawsuit against the Redskins that was similar to hers. The plaintiffs were ages 18 to 24 -- which meant they could not have complained about the trademark in 1967 because they were not yet born.

“The younger generation understands that this is no minor issue,” Harjo said. “When people can be racist in public and target your kids with derogatory stereotypes, all responsible people must take a stand.”

Harjo founded the Morningstar Institute in 1987. Through her advocacy, she has helped Native Americans recover hundreds of thousands of acres of land and numerous sacred sites. She is also a poet and columnist for Indian Country Today and served as a founding trustee for the National Museum of the American Indian.

When she began speaking out against negative stereotypes of Native Americans in the 1970s, there were more than 3,000 Native American sports mascots. Today, there are fewer than 1,000.

The Redskins are likely to be the last to go. But all has not been lost for Harjo.

In the 1980s, the football team gave the District thousands of large decals bearing the Indian head logo; the city in turn decorated residential trash cans with them. After Harjo filed the lawsuit and others began speaking out against the name, the city removed the decals.

“If anything, we got the Indians off the trash cans,” Harjo said.

And there’s one other thing: The team has not been to the Super Bowl since the suit was filed. We’ll soon find out whether the curse lives on.