Senator wants to curb Native American mascots

[walksalone11]

Senator wants to curb Native American mascots
by Joe Hanel
Herald Denver Bureau
Article Last Updated; Saturday, January 16, 2010 12:01AM

DENVER - A state senator is crafting a bill that targets offensive
Native American mascots at Colorado high schools.

Sen. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, said she is not trying to ban the
mascots outright. Instead, she wants to follow the lead of colleges
and a suburban Denver high school that used their mascots to learn
more about Native American communities.

"The purpose is to build good relations between the high school and
the Indian community," said Williams, the Legislature' s only Native
American member.

In Colorado, 17 to 19 high schools have "questionable" mascots, said
Darius Lee Smith, who is working with Williams on the bill. Smith is
director of the Denver Anti-Discrimination Office, but he's working
on the bill as a private citizen.

Smith said colleges like Florida State University have successfully
turned degrading mascots into sources of pride and education for
both their schools and Native Americans.

Florida State used to begin its football games with a performance by
its "Seminole" mascot.

"This Indian on a horse would ride out onto the field and throw a
spear into the ground, and the crowd would go wild," Smith said.

But when Florida State leaders approached Seminole tribes and
started to learn about the mascot, they found out the Seminoles
didn't ride horses, and their mascot looked more like a Lakota than
a Seminole.

So they changed the mascot's appearance and stayed engaged with the
tribes, a process that has led to new scholarships at FSU for Native
Americans, Smith said.

Such discussions are important for the psychology of Native
Americans and non-Indians, especially children, Smith said.

Smith, a Navajo, grew up in Denver among mascot stereotypes and
depictions of Native Americans in museums as a primitive people.

"I started to get this perception that all Indians were people of
the past," he said.

Arapahoe High School in Littleton had a similar experience in the
1990s with its Warriors mascot, Smith said. The principal went to
the Arapahoe tribe in Wyoming and engaged the tribal council. The
council not only gave permission to keep using the nickname, but it
commissioned an Arapahoe artist to draw a new logo.

The school now follows strict rules of respecting the logo, Smith said.

For example, the Warrior's face is not on the school's basketball
court, where it would be trampled by players.

Williams wants other Colorado high schools to have similar experiences.

She did not release a copy of her bill and has not introduced it,
but said she would do it soon. The Colorado Commission on Indian
Affairs will talk about the bill when it meets Friday, said Ernest
House Jr., the commission's executive secretary.

The bill applies only to high schools. The closest Native American
mascot to Southwest Colorado appears to be the Montrose High School
Indians.

In La Plata County, high school mascots include the Demon (Durango),
Wolverine (Bayfield) and Bobcat (Ignacio).

jhanel@durangoheral d.com
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[monnee]

How about curbing mascots in MLB, NFL, etc. too.  They have the Cleveland I. and the Washington R.S. etc.   

[southernhorizons]

I don't know why Indians would object to using their names for football teams. Obviously they are being complimented, because those teams choose names that are tough and fearless.

[shernajwine]

Maybe I misunderstood the article southernhorizons, but it seemed as though the Indians do not have a problem with their tribe names or logos being represented by athletic teams...but that they do want their people to be represented honestly, not caricatured in a disrespectful manner.

I gathered that they are saying that banning the mascots would actually serve to dissipate the progress the community of those schools has made in learning more FACTUAL information about their mascots and it's people. I could be wrong...but that's what I got from it.