Posted on 05/06/2002 1:05:54 AM PDT by kattracks
What is going on in the California state Legislature? First they go looking for reasons to pay reparations for insurance policies issued on slaves over 150 years ago, and now, in a spasm of political correctness, they're getting ready to ban the use of Indian mascot names for sports teams even though a poll shows a majority of Indians oppose the ban.
Gone by legislative fiat will be such team names as Redskins, Braves and Indians, when the bill, considered sure to pass, clears the state house.
According to the Washington Times, when the bill becomes law, California will become the first state to ban the use of the time-honored team names. The Times noted that the North Carolina State Board of Education is considering a ban, but adds that it would not be a state law.
Asserting that many people and organizations believe "the continued use of Native American images and nicknames in school sports is a barrier to equality and understanding," ultra-liberal Assembly member Jackie Goldberg, Los Angeles Democrat and lesbian activist, wrote in the introduction to her bill, adding that "all residents of the United States would benefit from the discontinuance of their use."
She failed to specify exactly how all of us would benefit from the ban.
Goldberg's bill would specifically ban six Indian-related names and allow state education officials to ban any other names that might somehow offend different ethnic groups. Her bill would affect almost 200 schools, including 60 high schools, statewide. No public colleges use Indian names in California, but the bill would prevent any existing or new colleges from adopting such mascots.
Some Indians - or Native Americans, or just plain old indigenous people, depending on what you choose to call them - have been particularly active in California, arguing for decades against the use of Indian names and symbols for mascots. The Times reported that Stanford University, a private institution in the Bay Area, for example, dropped its traditional "Indians" name way back in 1972. The Los Angeles Unified School District banned Indian-themed mascots in 1997.
"I think it is a step in the right direction, redressing the structural racism in our public schools," said Paula Starr, executive director of the Southern California Indian Center Inc. and a member of the Alliance Against Racial Mascots, a Los Angeles-based organization leading the drive for the ban.
"We are definitely concerned that schools that have imagery such as this may cause our children to not feel good about themselves. This is not political correctness; it's a moral issue and an educational issue," Ms. Starr said.
All this in spite of the fact that a majority of Indians support Indian-themed names and mascots, according to a recent Sports Illustrated poll. When asked if high school and college teams should stop using Indian nicknames, fully 81 percent of Indian respondents said no.
As far as professional sports are concerned, 83 percent of them said teams should not stop using Indian nicknames, mascots, characters and symbols.
Yet politically conscious California already bans Indian and other ethnic terms on state license plates. Late last year, the Times reports that the state Department of Motor Vehicles went so far as to force retired Washington Redskins player Dale Atkeson to return his custom license plates after learning that the letters spelled "1Redskn."
The state Assembly will likely vote on the bill before the end of May and pass it on to the state Senate. It specifies six names deemed to be offensive: Redskins, Indians, Braves, Chiefs, Apaches and Comanches. It also bans the use of "any other American Indian tribal name," thus implicitly ruling out names such as Sioux or Seminoles.
Under the bill's provisions, the state school board and the California Postsecondary Education Commission would be allowed to jointly add any other mascot names they can think of to the prohibited list.
The Times' Sean Scully speculates that this could see such non-Indian names as "Arabs," used by a high school in the Imperial Valley, east of Los Angeles, targeted by the PC Gestapo.
The use of Indian mascot names has also been a hotly debated issue in Maryland. According to a Maryland State Department of Education report released earlier this year, nearly half of the 26 schools in 14 counties statewide that used either Indian-inspired logos or team names have refused to change their names - despite pressure from some Indian state commissioners.
The bill has run into little opposition so far. State Republicans have complained about the cost of the bill but have abstained from committee votes rather than oppose it openly, and only one organization - the California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance has complained about it thus far, according to Mrs. Goldberg's staff.
Mike Heffernan, the organization's chairman, wrote to say that he had attended a Bay Area high school that used the name Apaches, and that the name was intended to honor the tribe, not mock it.
The bill "is too absolute, too one-sided," the retired high school football coach said last week. "It doesn't leave room for the good use of mascots and doesn't take into consideration tradition."
He said he would not support the use of a word such as Redskin, which many Indians see as a slur. But, he said, to ban the use of neutral-sounding words such as Apache and Comanche goes too far.
"It's basically the central government of the state telling local authorities they can't do it," he said. "That should be left up to the local schools to decide."
I was thinking the same thing. And while they're at it, drop all of the names of saints and angels they name their towns and cities after. It's an insult to Christians everywhere.
1. Utilize a mascot, other than Montezuma, that is an appropriate figure from Aztec culture.
2. It may be appropriate to use humans as mascots, depending upon how they are portrayed. Any human mascot must wear authentic and accurate attire as befitting the individual he/she represents.
3. Use of headdress, weapons (such as spears) and other parts of the mascot's regalia must also be representative of items that would actually have been used by the person(s) the mascot is designed to depict.
4. Dancing and other behavior displayed by the mascot must also befit the person(s) the mascot is designed to represent.
Now understand, they specifically state that "...the university would retain its affiliation with Aztec culture and traditions and would continue to use Montezuma as a symbol of SDSU". So SDSU will retain its "offensive" Indian name and will still use Montezuma as the school's symbol, but out on the football field they will have their politically acceptable stand-in. What hypocrisy!!
BTW, how many of you out there know of another "appropriate figure from Aztec culture" besides Montezuma?
How about someone with their heart cut out?
You could also accuse the 'RATs of racism for wanting to expunge Indian names and role-models from our culture.
Bingo! Touche! Home Run! Lightly scratch the surface of just about any PC sack-o-scat issue and you'll see these maggots milling about happily in the muck. Their self-proclaimed "sensitivity", "compassion", and (puke) "collective white guilt" has immeasurably contributed to the coarsening, division, and overall degradation of this society - they couldn't have been more effective if they'd declared a virtual moratorium on common sense.
Exactly what I was thinking. I thought about just numbering all streets, but that would just offend all the mathematicians. I thought about lettering all the streets but that would probably offend all teachers who teach the alphabet. Maybe we should just go back to the old caveman way of communication, 1 grunt for the street I live on, 2 grunts for the town, etc. No, not that either, any cavemen around would get their feelings hurt. What will we do? I'm really getting worried about this. All this thinking before my second cup of coffee gives me a headache.
Cortez?
I had a similar experience. I sat at a bar in Chicago a few years back with a Sioux and an African American. When I used the term "Native American," the Sioux gentleman told me the same thing and that "Indian" remained the term of choice on the rez. The black women added to our discussion by saying that blacks NEVER use African American unless speaking with white people.
Hmmm ... I'm not sure whether it could be considered an honor to become Homecoming King and Queen or not ... you know, like the virgin being sacrificed to the god of the volcano ...
Speaking of Cavemen, have you ever notice that, despite reams of evidence that mankind originated in Africa, all cavemen are depicted as dirty white people? =)
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