The NCAA’s decision last month to ban Indian mascots, logos and nicknames from postseason tournaments has opened up another can of worms — how to best hide offensive images that constitute a major portion of a venue’s design? From the AP :
Spokesperson Erik Christianson contends the complaints will not force the N.C.A.A. to back off its policy entirely. Rather, it will abide by the appeals process and fight in court, if necessary.
University Of North Dakota President Charles Kupchella said that approach could cost his institution. Ralph Engelstad Arena (above) which will be host to the West Regional hockey tournament in March, has nearly 3,000 Indian images built into the structure, including a 10-foot Indian sketch on the granite floor.
Kupchella said the N.C.A.A.’s requirement that universities make reasonable attempts to cover all American Indian symbols or logos for postseason tournaments that have been already awarded could cost North Dakota substantially more than it expected when it agreed to be host of the tournament.
“It’s not justified or legal,” Kupchella said.
Kupchella’s teams are nickamed “The Fighting Sioux”, a stance apparently justified by tribal approval. I guess if one group of people says they aren’t offended, that renders all other groups’ feelings on the subject invalid.
There is absolutely nothing offensive about the school name “The Fighting Sioux”. Congratulations to UND for defending itself. Fuck the NCAA.
“There is absolutely nothing offensive about the school name “The Fighting Sioux”.
Robert Jensen would disagree.
“Appeals to the dominant white society to abolish the “Fighting Sioux” nickname and logo typically are framed in terms of respect for the dignity and humanity of indigenous people. That is the appropriate way to address the question, but it has failed — at least in North Dakota — to persuade most white folks. So, today I want to pursue another argument.
I want to suggest to my fellow non-Indian North Dakotans — those of us whose ancestors came from some other continent, primarily those of us who are white and of European descent — that we should support the campaign to change the University of North Dakota name and logo not just because it is offensive, exploitative, and racist (it is all of those things) but also for our own sake. Let us do it for our own dignity. Let us join this struggle so that we can lay honest claim to our own humanity.
I say this because I believe that we give up our dignity when we evade the truth, and we surrender our humanity when we hold onto illegitimate power over others. And I want to argue that is what the nickname controversy is really about — white America refusing to come to terms with the truth about the invasion and conquest of North America, and refusing to acknowledge the fundamental illegitimacy of its power over indigenous people as a result of that conquest. It is about denial of the realities of the past and the present. It is, to follow the analysis of Ward Churchill, about holocaust denial and the consequences of that denial.
Let’s start with the past, which people often want to avoid. It’s history, they say. Get over it — don’t get stuck in the past. But this advice to forget history is selective; many of the same folks who tell indigenous people not to get stuck in the past are also demanding that schoolchildren get more instruction in the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers. It is commonly asserted, and undoubtedly true, that Americans don’t know enough about their own history (or that of the world). The question isn’t whether we should pay more attention to history. The relevant questions are: Who gets to write history? From whose point of view is history written? Which historical realities are emphasized and which are ignored? So, let us not take the seemingly easy — but intellectually and morally lazy — path of selectively contending that “history doesn’t matter.” Everyone knows it matters.
We can begin this historical journey in 1492, with the beginning on the European conquest of the New World. Estimates of the pre-contact indigenous population vary, but at the time there were approximately 15 million people living north of the Rio Grande, the majority in what is now the United States and perhaps 2 million in Canada. By the 1900 census, there were 237,000 Indians in the United States. That works out to an extermination rate of 97 to 99 percent. That means the Europeans who came to the continent killed almost all the Indians. It is the only recorded genocide in history that was almost successful. The Europeans who invaded North America, followed by their descendants who colonized the entire continent, eliminated almost the entire indigenous population, and in the process claimed almost the entire land base of those peoples.
But were those indigenous peoples really people in the eyes of the invaders? Were they full human beings? Some Europeans were not so sure. In the Declaration of Independence, one of our founding documents of freedom, Indians are referred to as the “merciless Indian Savages.” Theodore Roosevelt, whose name can be found on a national park in this state, defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process “due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway.” [Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life (New York: Macmillan, 1901).]
Among Jefferson’s “savages” and Roosevelt’s “barbarians” were the fighting Sioux — the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota, the people who lived in what we now call North Dakota. They fought the Europeans, and they eventually lost. They lost, for example, in the Wounded Knee massacre at the end of the 19th century, when U.S. soldiers opened fire on several hundred unarmed Lakota, killing most of them, mostly women, children and elderly. That massacre came at the end of what are commonly called the Indian Wars, an ambiguous term for the conflicts between Europeans and indigenous people in North America that helps obfuscate historical reality. Were these wars waged by Indians, or against Indians? Instead of the Indian Wars, we could be more precise and call them the “European/American wars to exterminate Indians.” We could call them part of the holocaust.
But wait, people will say, this ignores the fact that most of the indigenous people died as a result of disease. Today it is no longer considered polite to glorify the murder of Indians and the taking of their land; the preferred route to avoid confronting the holocaust is the disease dodge. But Churchill argues persuasively that the fact that a large number of indigenous people died of disease doesn’t absolve white America. Sometimes those diseases were spread intentionally, and even when that wasn’t the case the white invaders did nothing to curtail contact with Indians to limit the destruction. Some saw the large-scale death of indigenous people as evidence of the righteousness of their mission; God was clearing the land so that civilized whites could take their rightful place upon it. Whether the Indians died in war or from disease, starvation, and exposure, white society remained culpable.
That’s history. It’s not the history I was taught growing up in Fargo, North Dakota. But it is a real part of real history. It is every bit as real as the stories of courageous Norwegian farmers who homesteaded through brutal winters. For too long we have tried to keep those two histories separate. It is time to join them, to see that the homesteads were made possible by the holocaust.
Let me be clear: I am not asking anyone who is white to feel guilty about this. I do not feel guilty about this. I feel incredibly pained and saddened by it, just as I feel pained and saddened by other acts of brutality that litter human history. But I cannot take on guilt for events that happened before I was born. Feeling guilt for things outside my control would be illogical.
However I can — and should — feel guilty about things I have done wrong in my life, over which I do have control. I should feel guilty not simply so that I feel bad, but so that change is possible. Guilt is healthy when it leads to self-critique, to moral reflection, to a commitment to not repeating mistakes. We can feel that guilt both individually and collectively. We can see what we have done wrong or failed to do right, both by ourselves and with others. That brings us to the present.
The American holocaust perpetrated by Europeans and their descendants against indigenous people cannot be undone. But we can in the present work to change the consequences of that holocaust. One easy place to start could be eliminating a nickname and logo to which a significant number of Indians object. All that white people would have to do is accept that simple fact, and change the name and logo. It would cost no one anything, beyond the trivial expense of changing the design on some stationary, uniforms, and university trinkets.
But wait, many white people say, isn’t systemic poverty on reservations more important than a logo? Of course it is. Are there more pressing problems for Indians than the Fighting Sioux design? Sure. But there is nothing to stop anyone from going forward to address other problems and, at the same time, taking the simple step of changing the nickname and logo. It’s not an either/or choice.”
“Supporters of the Fighting Sioux might offer a counterargument: In that example all (or almost all) adult African-American males objected to the use of the term, because it was so obviously a way to denigrate them. But not all Indians object to Fighting Sioux, and there is an argument that such nicknames are meant to honor Indians. So, it is argued, we shouldn’t get rid of the nickname.
I do not know of reliable polling data that would tell us how the “average” Indian feels about the name. But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the vocal opponents of such nicknames and logos are a substantial percentage, but not a majority, of Indians. Let’s also assume that the most Indians do not have strong feelings, and that a minority genuinely support such nicknames. Can white people simply say, “Well, see, Indians can’t decide. So, we’ll leave things as they are.”
I think that is an attempt to avoid a simple choice. Indians are no more monolithic than any other group; there’s no reason to think there would be absolute uniformity of opinion. However, over time many Indians from a number of different backgrounds have developed a clear critique of the use of Indian nicknames and logos, and they have put forward that critique with clarity, honesty, and passion. I find the argument compelling, but even if one doesn’t agree, one has to at least acknowledge it is a rational argument and that it is easy to understand why people hold the position. In the absence of a universal demand from indigenous people, but in the presence of a strong argument that many indigenous people support, white people cannot dismiss the issue. It seems to me there are only two possibilities.
The first would be for the State Board of Higher Education and the university to acknowledge the longstanding opposition to the team name and change it. The second would be to let the people affected by this — the Indian population of the state and/or the university — decide the question. In other words, the only dignified and humane positions for white people are to either accept the judgment already rendered by Indians, or, if one believes that judgment is not clear, allow Indians to go forward and make that judgment (without external pressure, such as threats to withdraw funding for Indian programs or students if the decision is to eliminate the name and logo).
I am calling for white people to acknowledge that we have no right to choose how Indians are named and represented. We have no standing to speak on the question. Our place is to shut up and do what we are told. Let me say that again, for emphasis: We white folks should shut up and do what Indians tell us. Let’s try it, first, on this simple issue. We might find it is something we should do on a number of other issues.”
I’m white and i think it’s offensive. I say the best thing is to tear the whole stadium down, it’s been a problem from the start and it was built by a nazi supporter. It’s doesnt matter if it’s $110 million, UND didn’t follow the rules nor did they respect anyone and thats NOT right, so just like what would happen to anyone else, the whole stadium should be terminated or they need to put up the money and change every one of those 3000 symbols.