One Indian voice (which as you too basically note, should not and cannot represent all) –
American Indian author Sherman Alexie doesn’t like the term “Native American.” A poet, short-story writer, novelist and screenwriter, he rejects the name, saying that “native American” can mean anyone born in America.
Regarding mascots, Alexie says:
The mascot thing gets me really mad" Alexie says. "Don’t think about it in terms of race. Think about it in terms of religion. Those are our religious imagery up there. Feather, the paint, the sun that’s our religious imagery. You couldn’t have a Catholic priest running around the floor with a basketball throwing communion wafers. You couldn’t have a rabbi running around.
When I discuss this issue IRL with racist-mascot defenders, I ask them if a team called the New Jersey Jesuses would be okay, with a mascot dressed like Jesus dragging around on the field or court a large styrofoam cross. With a little wheel on the end that touches the floor. When they look offended or surprised, and also acknowledge that such an idea would never fly in the U.S., I then ask what the real difference is between that and so many Indian mascots. If they don’t get the point, at least they’ve thought about an alternative view for a bit.
Not different rules, exactly, but I believe that individuals and groups own their own identities. But on the other hand, maybe you have a point about different rules; with all the ethnic humor that goes on in Hawaii, notice you never hear Samoan jokes, ha!
About hula and chanting by po‘e haole, Kama‘āina or not… When asked on a radio interview one time why some of his hālau were non-Hawaiians, Kumu Mark Keali‘i Ho‘omalu said something like, “all my dancers are Hawaiian… some by blood, and some by hard work and dedication.”
I’m with Mark… and I know many Kumu hula who are happy to teach anyone who wants to learn. Aside from the haole people question, Hālau on the mainland would be a lot emptier if it weren’t for all the Filipinos! But here’s a disclaimer: although I am hānai by a Kanaka Maoli Auntie from Kaua‘i, I am ethnically Filipino and haole. I have put many thousands of hours of work into Hawaiian music, and also practice lā‘au kāhea as learned through my hānai family. Uncle George Na‘ope once told me that I qualified as Hawaiian… kind of kidding around, but still… Anyway, just didn’t want you to think that I’m Maoli.
That cover is effective for making a great point in such a simple and striking way. I look forward to checking out the book, thank you.
Cartoons can provide effective encapsulations of this issue. Regarding another problem, the general toxic, “freeze-them-in-the-past” cultural atmosphere that these mascots and similar caricatures help to perpetuate:
Context can make a very big difference in whether the same words or actions are perceived as offensive or not.
Example: Mel Brooks’ self-deprecating routines about Jewish culture would be decidedly less funny coming from a Nazi war criminal (or even someone whose ancestors were Nazi war criminals).
Miami University was one of the many schools that chose to change its Native American image and nickname in the midst of this controversy. Much like many other places where similar controversies arose, emotions ran high on this issue and it was a long, arduous 25-year process that led to the change from Miami Redskins to Miami Redhawks. Over a century of time passed from the start of Miami’s first football game in 1888 until the name change occurred in 1997-98.
How did an athletic nickname and figure develop and become entrenched as one of the college’s many traditions?
Was it intentional?
Who determined or influenced the path it took?
How were the Miami Indians involved?
When did it become a controversy at Miami and how was it handled?
To be fair, they aren’t really self-deprecating routines. A lot of Jewish jokes are jokes about the way people like your embarrassing uncle perpetuate stereotypes. British jokes are usually much the same. When we seem to be telling self deprecating jokes, we are in reality identifying an annoying social group that we, thank God, do not belong to. While what you say is true, people like Woody Allen have in the past stereotyped Jews, and being Jewish themselves doesn’t necessarily give them a free pass.
Redskin is a racial slur. If it wasn’t a slur in the old days, that’s irrelevant.
Not every mascot that uses a group of people is a racial slur or offensive caricature (Fighting Irish, Cowboys). That doesn’t mean that none are. If you don’t want to risk the name of your team becoming assholish as history progresses, then name it after an animal or something.
It’s not that fucking hard. Washington Honey Badgers - there, done.
I seriously don’t understand how a person can have an iota of self-respect while whining “but I waaaaaaaaant to call them that! I liiiiiiiike it! It’s important to meeeeee!”
Yeah, no. I don’t subscribe to the premedieval concept of ancestral sin.
Of course. Context always is most important. And how funny the joke is. Self deprecating humor is always way funnier than the same joke made about someone else. Often that’s just not funny. Tact can be a fine line. Funny often is when it’s just short of that line, or barely a tad over.
A friend said of himself he was cursed by birth. Being half Irish he needed to drink everyday, being half Cherokee he couldn’t hold his liquor.
It was funny because he said it. Gallows humor too.
The ethanol from alcoholic drinks is metabolized into acetaldehyde using an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). The more you have, the sooner you sober up. Like many Asians, Native Americans lack some chromosomes for that and unless they somehow inherited them from Whitey don’t produce ADH.
By the time a ‘proper Bavarian’ finishes his first gallon of beer he has already metabolized much of its alcohol and is that much less drunk than his Cherokee drinking buddy. Even if he has both a Jewish and a Nazi grandfather.
It’s not about punishing people for the sins of their ancestors. It’s about acknowledging that some groups continue to suffer from the actions of past generations while other groups benefit from those actions, by choice or otherwise.
Agreed, though I’d add “and the negligence and refusal to own up to a huge, unearned, and at-the-expense-of-others inheritance of current generations.”
That is one twisted interpretation of what is being discussed here. We’re talking about a power structure that directly privileges certain social groups above others, leaving groups like Aboriginals in many cultures without power and with significantly higher levels of poverty, unemployment and early mortality.
It’s not some arcane concept of justice, the “sins of the father” in this case have a direct, undeniable bearing on the fate of people right now, negatively for some and positively for others.
It isn’t an interpretation at all. It is a snarkily set outer limit to my agreement. You may remember that this was in discussion of a statement of mine that I made sure to not forget closing the sarcasm tag.
Didn’t you expect me to continue in that vein?
I mean, Brainspore swung a Godwin at me like a cartoonishly over-sized weapon to explain something to me I must have known to have made the sarcastic statement clearly marked with “/s)” in the first place.
Oh, you mean twisted as a compliment? Well thank you! And I’m glad we agree.
