Team Names

When I was growing up, the nearest division I college sports teams were the Stanford Indians.  This was a commonplace sort of team name and seemed an entirely positive reference: the athletes were purporting to have the properties of native Americans: Strength, endurance, team spirit, aggressiveness, loyalty, etc.  The college across the bay (which I later attended) were the Bears.  More independent perhaps, but strong, aggressive, etc.  The high school I went to were the "Pioneers": independent, far sighted.  Beavers, Ducks, Huskies, Vikings, Mustangs, Matadors, Chargers, Cowboys.  These were all meant to be positive references. Not really taken seriously as actually representational, just symbols to have on a flag. 

In 1972, Stanford decided to drop the indian mascot.  They struggled for a little while trying to find a replacement, temporarily using the team's primary color, Cardinal Red, and calling themselves the Stanford Cardinal.  40 years later, they've given up finding a new mascot and have stuck with the color.  This made no sense to me at the time: the Indian mascot was an entirely positive and honorable allusion. Why should real indians complain?

One trouble is, the stereotypes about a few of these have them to be marauding bandits. There's some truth to it, but like many marauding bandits, they were driven to desperate measures by economic changes not of their own making*.   Worse, there's an implied comparison to animals.  But really, that's silly--actual cowboys, vikings, matadors, etc., are not complaining--nor should they.  No insult is implied or intended.

The difference is that native Americans are still subject to real racial prejudice.  The people who are being touchy about mascots named for them are trying to get attention for a real cause.  It's not really the team name at all.  They are trying to get better treatment for indians--on reservations, in impoverished sections of cities, and so forth.  A lot of indians are trapped in a cycle of poverty that is very difficult to break out of.  Horrible things have been done to them.  Being touchy about team names is nothing more than a way of getting attention.  A PR campaign. 

There are, of course, lots of people who have confused the PR campaign for a real issue.  That's what Stanford did when they changed their team name.  This happens all the time.  If all the teams changed their names, they would have "won", but it would deprive the native Americans of a real PR asset.

-----------------
* The Norse had a huge population boom that left a lot of people without land, so some of them went viking (it's a verb) to occupy someone elses land.  At first scary, they assimilated very well.  Angles, Saxons, Normans, Russians all have viking heritage.  Indians were on the receiving end of this.  The vikings made a colony there too, but were not as successful as they'd been in europe.  500 years later, a new set of immigrants came, but brought devastating disease with them, which made colonization much easier.