Shakespeare could wax poetic about ‘What’s in a name?’ because he didn’t have to deal with sports mascots…
It is the politically correct problem in America that refuses to subsidize. I consider myself an enlightened cyber being, but I maintain that there are only a few issues that blur the overall picture of an ethically responsible society, and complaining that pets can be demeaning is at the top of the list.
A quick check of Webster’s 20th Century Unabridged Dictionary defines ‘pet’ as ‘any person, animal or thing that is supposed to bring good luck when present’. So it would seem that a team mascot is an honorary title. Most of the mascots in American sports had their origins in the early 20th century. Back then, teams groped for quaint nicknames until they gradually realized their tremendous marketing value. The New York Highlanders became the most regionally identifiable Yankees, for example, and the Chicago Cubs took their nickname so newspaper publishers could more easily fit it into headlines. Distinguished symbols such as Tigers and Giants appeared. Unique features like White Stockings and Red Stockings evolved into the more headline-friendly, special-spelling White Sox and Red Sox.
One of the first humorous attempts at anointing mascots was made by the Brooklyn Nine of Major League Baseball. The urban legend wasn’t a household phrase at the time, but it loosely describes the allusion to fans who ‘dodged’ streetcar fares to get a free ride to Ebbetts Field to watch the game. Those ‘bums’ were called Dodgers, and their favorite team was named after them.
Ironically, that drift toward the whimsical, probably intended to portray sports in its proper context as an entertainment of life, may have been the root of the outrage two generations later.
In my opinion, the social upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s were certainly justified. Civil rights needed to come to the fore, and the resulting improvement in the way all peoples were perceived was a great step forward for humanity. Still, there is a difference between meaningful awareness and pedantic perception in any movement. Therefore, in my opinion, when the mascot controversy was first brought into the headlines of the time by certain Native Americans, the attention given was only because it was absorbed into the back-stream of human rights campaigns.
Personally, I’ve always thought the issue was about as relevant to their legitimate concerns as bra burning is to women’s rights.
Think about it. Native Americans are not alone in being designated as pets. According to the Webster’s Dictionary definition, other people given the distinction include the Irish (University of Notre Dame) and the Norsemen (Minnesota Vikings). Both ethnic groups also suffered their moments of discrimination in the annals of American history. So far, none have mounted a protest for being characterized as a symbol of good luck for a sports organization.
Don’t even try to address the ‘cartoon’ argument as a reason why the Native American situation is different. Maybe Notre Dame uses a leprechaun logo now, but the term ‘Fighting Irish’ was a clear reference to bar brawlers, a stereotypical underworld trait in which immigrants from the Emerald Isle were perceived to be quite proficient. . As for the Norsemen, there is no evidence that even a Viking was foolish enough to go into battle with a pair of heavy horns on his helmet; Why would any warrior charge into a kill or be killed scenario wearing anything that would directly impede his ability to win? (The image of the horns came from drawings of Viking raiding priests trying to equate them with the devil incarnate, and it was Wagner who popularized this image when he staged his epic Ring of the Niebelung.)
The Cleveland baseball team selected several mascots in its early days. ‘Spiders’ just didn’t have that ‘je ne sais quoi’ of marketing sizzle. They were the ‘Siestas’ for a time, in honor of their star player-coach, Napoleon Lajoie. So when they finally settled on ‘Indians’ in correlation to one of their first star players, Louis Sockalexis, a Native American, the nickname may not have started out as a tribute to him, but it has since commemorated his legacy. . . Evidence indicates that the term was applied derogatorily to all members of the Cleveland team in the 1890s because they dared have the fortitude to allow an Indian to play for them. Since then, Sockalexis has been recognized as a pioneer in minority participation in major sports, as was the great Jackie Robinson fifty years later.
Yes, the team now uses a caricature of a Native American as its logo. In fact, Chief Wahoo is perennially one of the best-selling logos on sporting goods. It outsells the original NHL Columbus Blue Jackets logo, which honors the brave battalion from Ohio who fought so honorably in the Civil War. We have not heard the historical societies of that great state howl in outrage that this is done by putting a green bug on a Union soldier’s uniform. Instead, they are likely pleased that more of the American public has learned about the Blue Jacket story than ever before, just as the Cleveland Indians are able to keep the memory of Sockalexis alive.
Some protesters say Chief Wahoo has ‘sneaky’ eyes and that makes it even more demeaning. I, for one, never drew that connection, but if someone else did, why wouldn’t they be laughing and demeaning the University of Oklahoma Sooners? After all, that term originally implied that cheaters got ahead of themselves by claiming land that opened up for settlement.
There are many more examples. I just don’t see Native Americans being unduly isolated in this context, and no one else involved feels slighted.
The Washington Redskins originated in Boston, home to the Red Sox and Braves of baseball in the 1930s. They were also called the Braves back then, because they played in that team’s stadium. However, when they ended up getting better conditions to locate in Fenway Park, they did not want to confuse the public that paid to be Braves but play in the Red Sox stadium. Their solution made sense: they incorporated references to their origins and their new gaming site by changing their name to Redskins. However, Logic apparently didn’t register with enough fans, and the team soon left for the nation’s capital.
The point here is that the Redskins name was derived not as an insult, but as a facilitation to distinguish the team’s new home, albeit a transitional one. Also, to be fair, the Redskins organization has only used a noble image as a symbol of the name. Washington DC is one of the most liberal cities in North America, with a majority minority population. The connotation of that nickname being demeaning, as in the case of the Cleveland Indians, simply doesn’t emerge from its context.
My impression, then, remains that the mascot controversy has its only value in the publicity it gives to the organizations that raise it. Professional and college sports are more visible than ever in the US, and what better way to rank one’s organization in the top “page rankings” than to make headlines in the sports section of the newspapers? and transmissions?
The matter is not going to go away any time soon. Now the NCAA, the governing body for college sports, has decreed that any college with a Native American mascot may not host a championship event or use its mascot in any championship event. Some schools have successfully been granted exceptions, which makes even less sense to me. Does this mean that the Florida State Seminoles, for example, are less demeaning to Native Americans than the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota (a traditional college hockey powerhouse)? How hypocritical is that? If they claim that there are degrees of discrimination due to local circumstances, then they are admitting a sensibility directed beyond the boundaries of society, which is itself discriminatory. How can such a position be rationalized with a clear conscience?
Pets, however commercialized they may be, are nothing more than whimsical symbols. Society as a whole understands that, just as it realizes that the stylized violence in Grimm’s fairy tales leaves no lasting scars on the psyche of the children who innocently absorb them. Those who claim otherwise only risk trivializing themselves and the credibility of their great cause.
Nowhere in the country do such issues remain in joyful perspective more than in Orofino, Idaho. That is the site of the state mental hospital. The local high school teams are called the Maniacs.
No one protests, unless the teams don’t play hard.
