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 he United States
Commission on Civil Rights has before it a draft statement on "Use
of Native American Images and
Nicknames
as Sports Symbols." The draft calls for an end to Indian images
and team names, on the grounds that they "are disrespectful and
offensive to American Indians," particularly "in light of the history
of forced assimilation that American Indian people have endured
in this country." The commission may vote on the draft next month.
The first point to be made is the obvious one: The U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights doesn't have enough to do these days and is a waste
of the taxpayers' money. Once upon a time it investigated actual,
heinous discrimination when few others would. Now there is, thank
goodness, less discrimination to investigate, and no shortage of
organizations — inside the government and out — to do
so. But the commission, now dominated by politically correct ideologues,
totters on.
The Indian statement is a case in point. There are some mildly interesting
and entertaining issues here, to be discussed in a moment. But there
is no reason to think that the presence of the Cleveland Indians
or Midville Warriors is a national problem with which any part of
the federal government need concern itself. There is nothing to
investigate, and no expertise that the commissioners can bring to
bear on this issue — certainly none greater than any sports-bar
denizen with a decent knowledge of team nicknames, mascots, and
rituals.
Americans name their sports teams after all kinds of things. I suspect
that most teams are named after animals, usually predators or locally
beloved, like Bengals and Badgers, respectively. Others teams are
named after workers in local industries: Oilers, Steelers, Packers,
Mariners, and so forth. There are also historical figures, like
Cowboys, Forty-niners, and Patriots.
And some of these figures are ethnically identifiable. You have
the Minnesota Vikings, for instance, and the Boston Celtics, as
well as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. For the religious fan, there
are the San Diego Padres and the Syracuse Orangemen (shouldn't that
be Orangepersons, by the way?).
Anyway, team names don't have much in common — maybe nothing
— except one thing. Teams are not named after
| “I
don't think it's wrong to insist that a complaint be a
reasonable one before acting on it.” |
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things
that people don't like. After all, people will be rooting for the
team and, in the case of schools, will call themselves whatever
the team's name is, even if they aren't on it. While I'm largely
ignoring the bizarre modern trend toward naming teams after abstract
concepts, even here the names are positive: It's "Heat" and "Wild,"
not "Tepid" and "Tame." Likewise, the University of Southern California
has chosen a name to endorse responsible and safe sex.
So it seems a little odd to suggest that naming a team after Indians
is a calculated insult. More likely, the name will have some historical
significance in a given team's geographic area. Another logical
explanation is that the qualities we often associate with Indians
are the same martial virtues that we like in our athletes: courage,
strength, boldness, resourcefulness.
This is, in fact, a remarkable situation when you think about it.
The white man comes, takes the Indians' land, kills Indians, and
is killed by them. And yet the residual feeling is admiration. We
respect and follow the Indians' expertise in the wild, borrow wholesale
from their vocabulary (including thousands of place names, adopted
by many states and cities), join "Indian Guides" with our children
— and name our teams and ourselves after them.
I wonder if there is anything like this anywhere else in the world.
You would think that the more usual course is for the conqueror
to obliterate the memory of the vanquished and denigrate everything
about them. Anglo-Saxon words became declasse after the Norman invasion,
right? Did the Romans name their schools after barbarians? Do little
German boys dream of being French? I doubt it.
Some Indian activists are nonetheless offended. It might be argued
that that's all that really matters. They didn't pick the names,
and why offend people if you don't have to?
But I don't think it's wrong to insist that a complaint be a reasonable
one before acting on it. Some American Indians aren't offended,
and actually take the symbols as a compliment. When Marquette High
School on Michigan's upper peninsula yanked its Indian logo, the
town's Native American community led the successful protests to
restore it. Many Indians might object to the sort of ethnicity cleansing
their "leaders" want. And why should self-appointed spokesmen for
any group have veto power over everyone else? They may view the
mascots as stereoptypical, but one suspects that the real problem
is that — as leftists — they don't like the martial virtues
with which their ancestors are being associated.
So I don't think that it is fair for the Civil Rights Commission
to characterize the use of Indian names and images for sports symbols
as, categorically, "disrespectful and offensive."
That said, however, I think it certainly is possible to be disrespectful
and offensive in the way that Indian names and images are chosen
and used. For instance, if the mascot's act includes getting drunk
on too much firewater and groping the opposing team's cheerleaders,
that would be a problem. Less frequently, the names themselves might
be problematic. Thus, I wouldn't name a new team the "Redskins"
now, since Webster's says the term is "usu. taken to be offensive."
(On the other hand, this connotation is relatively new; my 1966
and 1969 editions of Webster's say nothing about the term being
inappropriate — and, when you think about it, why should it
be any more offensive than "black"?)
If the owners of the Washington Redskins want to change the team's
name, that should be up to them. Team owners ought to be sensitive
to public perceptions, and should strive to avoid insulting people
on the basis of skin color or ethnicity. But this should be voluntary
decision — not one forced on the Redskins by a lawsuit arguing
that the team is violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because
it is "federally funded" or a "public accommodation."
The Civil Rights Commission raises the specter of such dubious lawsuits
in its draft statement, but this brings us back to where we started.
This is not a national problem crying out for a federal, one-size-fits-all
solution. If some teams have received legitimate complaints, they
can respond to them. But there is no need for the Commission to
go on the warpath.
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