This morning I woke up to phone notifications. Blinking awake, I clicked over to twitter on my phone, and was greeted with the news: “New poll finds 9 in 10 Native Americans aren’t offended by Redskins name.” I sat up, let the phone fall in my lap, and said some choice words that I won’t print here.
The Washington Post has apparently devoted a lot of time and resources to conducting a “nationally representative” poll of “Native Americans” to find out whether or not they find the Redsk*ns name offensive. In their survey of 504 “Native Americans,” they found that 90% did not find the name offensive. They published a follow up that gives the details on the survey and answers some FAQ.
Before I dive in, a note: This is not something I should have to do. For the last 7 years I’ve been writing this blog we’ve made huge gains in the way the public thinks about Native peoples and Native mascots. It’s been the hard, hard work of a huge community of activists and community members for decades, and I just don’t understand why WaPo felt the need to do this poll. More on this in a minute, but we’ve got psychological studies, tribal council votes, thousands of Native voices, and common decency and respect on our side, yet that was not enough. The Washington Post needed their OWN survey. The perspectives of Native peoples, who this effects directly, apparently aren’t enough.
So the poll. WaPo has generously provided (that’s not sarcasm) the actual questions, the breakdown by demographics for each, so feel free to explore. Look here.
This is where I want to focus my attention: 56 percent of this “nationally representative sample of Native Americans” was non-Native. I need you to understand this. 56% of the sample has no tribal affiliation.
Caveats, mostly for the Natives reading this: Yes, there are many pre-ICWA adoptees who don’t know their tribal affiliations. Many of those adoptees have been able to find their families and enroll in their tribes as well. Yes, there are an estimated 11,000 Natives who have been disenrolled from their tribal nations, and presumably would not have a tribal affiliation. Though, the Native peoples I’ve met in that situation have often made that clear to me “I’m XX tribe, but my family was disenrolled” (also this isn’t meant to dismiss the severity of the disenrollment issue. But that’s another post). Finally, with tribal enrollment policies varying, there are plenty of people who are unable to enroll in their tribes. But those folks often will still list a tribal affiliation when asked, or say they are a “descendant of XX nation.” Do these three groups make up 56% of Indian Country? Heck no. This is a small minority.
The bottom line for me is this: In my entire life, I have never met a person, who primarily identifies as a Native American, who didn’t have a tribe. Yes, that is a potentially dangerous blanket statement, but it gets at a fundamental misunderstanding of Native identity. Native identity is not just a racial category. It is a category of citizenship. I try very hard to use the language of citizenship–“I am a citizen of the Cherokee Nation”–and not “membership.” Membership, to me, is for a club or an organization, not a sovereign nation. This would be like conducting a poll that tried to get at the opinions of “American citizens” and reporting that only 44% of those polled had American citizenship.
The other piece here is that WaPo is comparing the demographics of their group to national census data on Native peoples. Census data for Native peoples is notoriously unreliable and inaccurate in many ways. The myth of the “Native ancestor” or “Cherokee great-grandma” is real in the United States. Some people may have Native ancestry, but you are not all Cherokee. I’m sorry.
WaPo’s sample included mostly Cherokee and Navajo. Those are two of the largest tribes in the US, but (I can say this as a Cherokee Nation citizen) I’d venture to guess most of those “Cherokees” are going off a blood myth rather than actual tribal enrollment. On the 2010 census 819,105 people identified as “Cherokee” alone or in part. Yes, over 800,000 people in the US claim they are Cherokee. To put this in perspective, the next largest was Navajo, at 332,129, and “all other American Indian tribes” at 429,629. There are 567 federally recognized tribes. How could a sample truly be representative of that diversity?
They tried to weight the sample toward reservation Natives, even though those census records they held onto so carefully indicate that 78% of Native people lived off reservation lands in 2010. As an aside, I also hate the constant dichotomy of reservation Natives (therefore the “real” ones) and off-rez Natives on the mascot issue. The reason some folks on the rez might not care in the same way (which is also a problematic stereotype, because many of the lead activists in this live on or near reservations) is because they aren’t faced with the results of these mascots a daily basis. Things like these “honoring” moments. We in the city have to walk down the street and encounter this racism everyday, and we’re separated from the counter-narratives and counter-representations that would surround us if we lived in our communities. Many of us don’t have easy access to our ceremonies, our aunties, our grandmas, our land–the things that show us we aren’t the harmful stereotypes we see at the sports arena. Folks on the reservation do have those counter-examples, surrounding them at all times. Additionally, if you only interact with other Native people everyday, no one is going to call you a redsk*n as a slur. This is not to disparage or discount those who truly don’t find the name offensive. Just to provide context.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I don’t actually want to spend more time breaking down the poll. Because it’s not the poll or the results that matter. It’s the effects this will have, and already has, on those in the fight for representational justice, and the big question of why. Who does this serve, honestly?
As of 3:15pm, there are already over 100 articles written about the poll. All with headlines like “9 out of 10 Native Americans not offended by Redsk*ns,” “Majority of Native Americans don’t care about Redsk*ns”:
As someone who has devoted so much of her life to these issues, this makes me want to cry. I know how hard I’ve had to fight to debunk the original poll, and how hard I will now have to fight to complicate and push back on this one. Again, I ask why this was necessary.
This is just an investment in white supremacy, plain and simple. It is an attempt to justify racism, justify the continued marginalization of Native peoples, justify divide-and-conquer techniques that are pitting Native people against one another. It devalues Native voices, stories, and experiences.
These mascots do not honor us. They are disparaging, stereotypical, and harmful to the psychological well being of our youth. They honor a mythic past that erases our current existence. We’ve been fighting this since the 1970’s. This is not a new fight. We just want respect as human beings, not consensus as to whether or not a mascot is “offensive.” Today’s Native peoples are the survivors, the resistors, and are vibrant, diverse, contemporary human beings who deserve to be treated as such.
This is also the mascot of the football team in Washington DC, our nation’s capitol. In thinking through the implications of this, I often think about meetings between political officials and a leaders of Native communities. The Native leaders are entering the meeting expecting to be treated as the leader of a sovereign nation with a government-to-government relationship with the US, but the President/Senator is instead picturing a wild-eyed savage war whooping through the plains, or not picturing that they or their Native nation continue to exist at all.
Our leaders and lawmakers in the US government are socialized in the same America that we all are–the one that teaches little to no actual Native history in schools, that erases the existence of contemporary Native peoples, that still thinks its ok to dress up like an “Indian” for whatever occasion, that still has Native peoples as mascots in the capital of the United States.
Think about that. Each day, when these lawmakers come out of their offices, they are greeted with the image of a disembodied, stereotypical Indian head, accompanied by a racial slur, to represent the Indigenous nations they are supposed to be partnering with. I don’t know if you’ve been to DC, but this image is everywhere. Honestly, how the heck are we supposed to get anywhere with the federal government if we’re still being painted as “Redsk*ns” right outside their office doors?
But I’ll leave you with this again. Who does this poll serve, WaPo? You have all the resources and facts you could possibly imagine that paint the alternative story. At this point you are willfully ignoring Native voices. Who does this serve? Dan Snyder, white supremacy, racism. Not Native people, that’s for sure. I said on twitter, and I’ll reiterate here, for the amount of money that went into this, you could have hired a Native reporter. Let us be in the room. Let us have a voice, let us help shape the questions. Let us have stories on contemporary Native communities and issues. We are more than mascots.
If you want the counterstory to the WaPo poll, I have an (ongoing) petition of Native people who are against the Redsk*ns name. You can find it here. At time of publication, we’re at 5,892 names. Yes, not a nationally representative sample, not a “scientific” poll, but nearly 6000 names of proud Native peoples. All of these folks have tribal affiliations, and scrolling through the list, the tribal diversity is beautiful, specific, and amazing. Feel free to sign if you agree.
Previous posts (pulled language from some of these posts for this one, since there’s only so many ways to say “please respect us and represent us respectfully”):
“10 examples of mascots “honoring” Native Peoples”
“Missing the Point on the Red Mesa Redsk*ns”
“When you’re invisible, every representation matters: Political edition”
National Congress of American Indians Report on mascots (2013): Ending the legacy of racism
Comments
As a tribal citizen of the Shoshone-Bannock and Oglala Lakota on my mothers side, we should have honoring ceremonies for people like you out there working and fighting hard for us. At this time I honor you and the hard work and fight you are committed to protecting our peoples. As a person in graduate school, I find the information you share very educational in recognizing how harmful mascots can be to presenting my research in ecology. I’m with you and trying to make sure my science reflects my upbringing, and that is not taken lightly or as a joke or passed off. Being a mascot is dehumanizing, thank you for humanizing me today and always, oose, wopila!
I think the part that ticked me off the most was how proud they were of having enough of a sample size to get 95% confidence at 5% margin of error, as if that wasn’t the minimum anyone would even consider slightly valid. But what’s more interesting is after taking into account the fact you brought up that only 44% of them had tribal affiliation that makes their number only 222 people in the sample, or falling over 150 people short of being valid in any way.
Of course that’s not even considering all of the other issues with it.
If one just stuck to the analysis: 56% are not enrolled, the 56% are not informed of the debate, then 78% don’t find it important. I’m speculating here but probably less than 100 people who might be qualified to participate, and that is still a big probably? In comparison to approximately 6000 signatories to who are against the name. I’m sure they did a comparison to a control; asking a random group of equal participants not members of tribes and probably no significant difference. Meh, can you say false positive!
I hadn’t noticed before but only 340 self identified Native Americans actually completed the survey. Which means that it isn’t +-5% at 95% it’s +-7% (by their own estimate) also known as not valid enough.
This is what happens when journalists play fast and loose with statistics just to get a headline.
“This is just an investment in white supremacy, plain and simple”
Okey doke.
I’m new to this, I’m a non-native who (I guess has woken up is the best term) to the ways in which I am either supporting the disrespect of native cultures or actively working against the mainstream to call for change and a platform to be given to native voices and an appreciation and respect of cultural symbols and artistic expressions.
I’m naive but aware of my responsibility to learn, and honestly I was shocked when I read the WaPo article on my twitter feed. People really don’t get it???still??? They don’t see the blatant disrespect of having a pro sport team named after a derogatory slur? I just don’t get it.
All that to say I’m angry, this poll is disrespectful, but I’ll keep having the conversations with friends, discussing the continued mistreatment with political reps and overall just supporting the brilliant work and voices of so many native groups and individuals.
As an older white male, living in Oregon, I attend many Powwows in the state, and Washington. I can count on ONE hand those that have said they have no problem with it. This poll is put out by the Washington football teams owner in order to justify his racist team’s name, and his personal feelings, that being a “mascot” is somehow honorable.
Red Mesa Redskins a Navaho High School football team .. Someone needs to tell them they are racists!!!
It’s Navajo. And this post is literally linked right above “Missing the point on the Red Mesa Redsk*ns”: http://nativeappropriations.com/2014/10/missing-the-point-on-the-red-mesa-redskns.html
So a nigger can say nigger but no one else can. Got ya
It’s a rule everybody should recognize. If you’re not part of the group, be careful what you say. My girlfriends and I may be joking around, laughing, calling each other bitches, but you would be out of line joining in on that. It’s really pretty simple.
Excellent takedown, Dr. Keene! I always find your analysis, whether in writing or elsewhere (like on that episode of America Reframed), very helpful.
Why would you nickname your team with something mocking or disparaging? The answer is you wouldn’t. Redskins is a tribute to the fierce Algonquins who wore red war paint. Stop the faux outrage.
Hi Pete, you must be new here! http://nativeappropriations.com/?s=indian+mascots
Thank you. I want a team name that will envision a fighting spirit, something about being a champion, winning, strength. You REALLY think they choose something they thought was racist!!!!
Just because you don’t think it’s racist doesn’t mean it isn’t racist. Even if the name was created without the intent of being racist, enough people have spoken up about it by now that the team should be willing to change the name. That’s just common courtesy.
common courtesy? lol so, what if they somehow change it to something that someone else claims to be offended by? are they supposed to change the name every year?
What about the cleveland cavaliers? is that offensive to descendants of 17th c european cavaliers?
Clear cut genocide was enacted upon the Native Americans all across North America and Central America. Having the race who did that, now playing around with the symbols of the Native Americans is indeed offensive. It’s not just that it is a particular group of people, it is what one culture did to another culture. Never will be a fun or funny matter. Come on now, would you consider making an image of a fighting black man as a team mascot? Same type of history, same logic.
hypothetical example……zzzzzzz.zzzzzzz.zzz………zzzzzz
it’s like outlawing the word cracker because some people use it in a derogatory fashion even though most people use it in its proper sense
Great writeup, Dr. Keene. It’s up on reddit and I’ve shared it on Facebook. Hopefully we can get some pushback going on this.
It is unbelievable that a corporation would have the nerve to insist it’s alright to demean a culture, and go to such effort to prove its point. Its seed is disrespect, but its root is money, money, money. It would cost them too many dollars to revamp their sports franchise.
Red Mesa Redskins, a Navaho High School football team .. Someone needs to tell them they are racists!!!
but no one is demeaning anyone’s culture. what is your problem? why do you insist on constantly stirring up shite that no one cares about?
um, we care
It is a blessing and a privilege to be an enrolled member of my tribe and to know this part of my ancestry. But I never have lived on the reservation and would be hesitant to refer to myself as a citizen, with all that word entails. I lend my voice to NA issues, but definitely defer to those who have lived their lives on the reservations, who have walked the walk and talked the talk.
Just yesterday I saw in a forum section of a genealogy website, a woman who was perplexed because her family lore was absolutely certain that her father was part Cherokee. She took the DNA test and didn’t understand why no NA DNA showed up. Sound familiar? Maybe in a decade, with so many people taking the DNA test, the Cherokee tribe won’t have to endure this as much.
What about African? I know here in Australia that some Aboriginal people who couldn’t pass as White tried to pass as belonging to another race, like South Asian or Pacific Islander. Perhaps some of those family myths of being part Native American come from Black Americans having similar ideas.
Yes, I don’t think there is anything malicious about these family stories. I think it is just wishing that the family story was more interesting, exotic so to speak. And no one wants to question Grandma’s stories. Unfortunately I have to say that the Black Indian group on Facebook is an example of this wishing. Many there insist that there is no need for a DNA test. Too bad we all can’t happily accept who we really are, and at the same time respect who others are.
Will anyone be asking the Indian High School football team called the “Redskins” to change their name also ?? Im actually surprised that such strong, proud people who have endured so much, get their feeling hurt over a NAME!!!
again, http://nativeappropriations.com/2014/10/missing-the-point-on-the-red-mesa-redskns.html
All older white irish males, portrayed as intolerant drunks by the “fighting irish” mascot, stand up and be heard NOW!!!
I’m 1/4 Irish American and I take offense to that stereotype. So do most Irish. Maybe you should ask someone of Irish descent before you presume to speak for them. Maybe you out to re-think this great counterpoint to justifying racism you’ve got going on.
A school run by folks largely of Irish heritage (Notre Dame) using “fighting Irish” stereotypes for their team may be a bit cringeworthy, but it’s them being ignorant about their *own* relatives and history. Playing Indian is a whole ‘nother matter.
“Redskins” are scalps. It’s the bounty for the “pelt”[sic] of peoples’ grandparents, who were in living memory hunted like animals. Yes, as a person of Irish heritage in the diaspora, it sucks being subjected to stereotypes of ourselves (and our ancestors) as violent drunks. But mostly we only get that at St. Patrick’s Day (month). Natives get that all year round. The false stereotypes of Natives as addicts and alcoholics leads to them not getting proper medical care when they go for treatment, among many other things. The Irish have now had the presidency, and run most of the police forces in major American cities, while Natives are being murdered by cops at a higher percentage than any other group. Genocide is still happening. And “little things” like images of dead Indigenous people’s heads waved in front of children or white people in redface throw salt in that wound, preventing it from healing.
Slán.
Red Mesa Redskins a Navaho High School football team .. Someone needs to tell them they are racists!!!
I always thought these mascots and sports names were meant to honour the great warrior spirit of the Indians, not disparage them. Why is that so hard to understand? No one is putting down Indians ( natives, aboriginals, whatever name you want to use.)
Well, you have the warrior spirit by speaking in this forum as you do. Maybe there ought to be a team named after you?
Oh of course. Not surprised that all of the people on here actually complaining about this article and shouting “this is not racist! It’s honoring Native Americans” are white. White people who have never experienced racism and never will. And yet they think they are experts on this topic. It’s amusing.
OK friends, twice in the past week I’ve seen different videos featuring white housewife/mother types acting in a hip hop/rap manner. At first it seems funny, but then isn’t this the same cultural appropriation behavior? Why would it be OK?
It’s like the Daily Show bit they did with the 1491s, anti-mascot activists, and supporters of the Washington team using the racist mascot. Every one of those white people claimed to have Cherokee heritage. I’ll bet all the “Indians” they polled were white people like the ones in that bit. Everyone who follows this issue in Indian Country knows where people stand on this. The Washington Post should be ashamed of themselves.
2 Points:
1) Regardless of tribal membership or fictitious belief in a family myth that one has Native ancestry, of the 44% surveyed who said they were a member of a tribe, 90% said there weren’t not offended by the D.C. football team name. (I’m not a supporter of the team name and have been a long time advocate to get the name changed. I’m just pointing out what the survey found.)
2) While many efforts have been spent trying to convince the prevailing culture of the offensive nature such team mascots present, perhaps more efforts need to be spent on educating Natives on how the prevailing culture disrespects them.
All they have to do is pick up a newspaper. In my county if there is an article in the newspaper about local NA affairs, the reader comments are always ugly and vicious.
Par for the course, with far too many ready to just ignore. (sigh) Those with power and privilege want to be able to continue to denigrate others. Makes them feel like they are superior, which would be sad if it didn’t hurt those they denigrate.
Oh poor baby. Maybe you can get Sen. Warren to help you.
Native Americans, or as I like to call them the second peoples, committed genocide on the First People in North America the Solutreans and stole their technology such as the arrowhead style and manufacturing. They outnumbered and caused the almost total removal of any memory of the Solutreans. Problem is the arrowhead design is from Spain long before the Siberian hordes crossed the Bering land bridge. Go back to where you came from 🙂
You first.
So as a social scientist, I read over the methodology used in this study and it appears there are some fundamental flaws. This survey is problematic since the sampling frame was not Native people, but a survey of the general population (with a 10% response rate) without any stratification or over sampling, where respondents who self-identified as Native American were given some additional questions to answer. They then aggregated the responses from respondents who self-identified as Native American over a period of weeks and weighted the responses. They have 504 people from 50 states, so let’s say about 10 people are representing all Native people in any given state. A fundamental premise of social science research is that your sampling frame (the pool of possible respondents) should be representative of the population of interest. So in this case, at the very least, they would need a sampling frame that was representative of all the tribes, which clearly was not done. There is also a problem in that the respondents were given these questions after taking another survey, which could have biased the results based on what they were asked. Anyway, a friend asked that I share my thoughts with this forum in case they might be helpful.
Thank you so much Stacey! This is really helpful.
Why dont you take the time to redo the poll as you frame it out in your post. Call and/or knock on the doors of all the people you need to contact to correct the problem. That way we can all witness your true passion in correcting the issue. Or- does it REALLY not matter to you enough to do so? Or maybe Ms Keene could take the time to do so herself.
You city folk think you know everything- well you don’t. And please stop using your derogatory term ‘rez’ to describe us. And we do not want your colonial jobs either. Thank you.
Im just wondering how you feel about the band “Redbone”. Do you turn the radio off when their hit “Come and Get Your Love” plays?
Maybe we should ban everything and everyone.
Get over yourself.
……because they are Native American too. Do we ban the band?
Watch them sing their 70’s hit on Youtube. REDBONE
Halbritter has been labeled a dictator by some inside the tribe who accuse him of being a heavy-handed leader who “answers to no one,” according to Doug George-Kanentiio, the co-founder of the Native American Journalists Association.[6] He has been accused of garnering vast personal wealth by exploiting his role of CEO of Oneida Nation Enterprises, but he denies that he has become a billionaire.
Halbritter’s initiatives have been criticized by some Oneidas, who say he has violated the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee by embracing gambling. They also fault him for selecting his own clan mothers and for creating a “men’s council,” both unheard-of practices in Haudenosaunee tradition
Halbritter actually has three sons, two of whom were arrested in April, 2012 by the New York State Department of Health Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and the New York State Police in LaFayette. The charges were for third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a class B felony; second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, a class D felony; and first- degree falsifying business records, a class E felony.
Predictably, Halbritter did not bring up his own childrens’ troubles or his failed marriages at the October 7 Name-Change symposium held at Georgetown’s Ritz Carlton. Instead, he blamed the Redskins mascot for injuring the collective psyches of all youngsters.
THe Washington Post has spent years printing articles about how “disparaging” the Redskins name is. Now they print an article with poll numbers that dont suit you and your agendas and you spend time splitting hairs, distort statistics, and argue incessantly.
Grow up.
I’m Chinese. I don’t have a problem with people using the world Chink around me. In fact, I wouldn’t even care if they used it in a sports team.
You know what I take offense to? People who take offense on my behalf for racism. Really – I don’t need you to pity me or sympathize with me. Most of us ethnic minorities enjoy the stereotype and don’t really care. People who are not ethnic minorities pretending to understand what it’s like to be an ethnic minority is the biggest patronization. “Pity” is a horrible sentiment, because people artifically see race or a construct as a barrier that requires attention. In reality, if you stopped talking about race as if it is an extant construct, it would naturally disappear. Sorry white people – You don’t get it. Stop pretending you do.
The same goes for stupid legislations like “hate crime” which are discriminatory towards the offenders just as much as it is to the victim. There should be no differentiation between types of murder just because the victim is an ethnic minority.
I don’t know who is more sad in this stupid debate – The idiotic social justice warriors, or the people who are taking advantage of the offense to achieve their own agenda in supremacy.
If you ask me, they are both equally disgusting. Get on with life and stop worrying about a team’s name. I assure you – Those who are complaining are the vocal minority. The silent majority are busy having sex, drinking, and enjoying life.
Just because you’re loud doesn’t make you right.
Well, being silent certainly doesn’t make you right either. Even if we try, we can never fully walk in another’s shoes. We are human first, gender second, race third. Each of these components are meaningful and valid.
As a DC native, the thing that boggles my mind is that the Washington Post has actually taken stances against the name in the past–they stopped using it in editorials a couple of years ago and used “the Washington football team” or similar instead. The actual sports page never made that switch but it seems like they’ve gone out of their way as an institution to defend it here. I just don’t get it (unless maybe they thought the results would go the other way? But I’m a professional survey researcher and I agree 100% with your analysis of the issues with the sample–there’s no way this should have been done with simple self-identification as Native American out of a random sample of the general population).
If we are all to have equality and considered a part of a GROUP that means the polling consists of ALL parts of the community, contributing an opinion.
This is the problem that has now backfired amongst some too far left leaning Liberals ( not like myself) against Change the Mascot Movement- The American public does not wish to have “Selective” and “Exclusive” opinions forced down their throats if a movement is unsuccessful in the community, and all the while hearing about the demands for equality at the same time.
Ms, Keene I would like to know your opinion on the 70’s band REDBONE. A popular pop band of Native Americans. Do you sing along to “Come and Get Your Love”? Id be willing to surmise youre old enough to remember that song…and probably sing along to it.
What would your exhausting-to-read “Statistical Number Crunching” difference between REDBONE and REDSKIN be?
Especially since we are taught to believe “It is what is on the inside of us as human beings, that matters”.
You should work on Wall Street or instead teach Math at Harvard, with all the number crunching you grasp for regarding the WAPO poll.
REDBONE Lyrics for Come and Get Your Love
ail (hail)
What’s the matter with your hair? Yeah
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with your mind and your sign? And a, oh, oh, oh-a
Hail (hail)
Nothing the matter with your head baby, find it, come on and find it
Hail
With it, baby, ’cause you’re fine, and you’re mine, and you look so divine
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Hail (hail)
What’s the matter with you? Feel right
Don’t you feel right baby?
Hail, oh yeah
Get it from the main vine, all right
I said a-find it, find it
Go on and love it if you like it, yeah
Hail (hail)
It’s your business, if you want some, take some
Get it together, baby
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Come and get your love
Think one of the most awful things is just how they dont even recognize why redskins is found offensive or what even the issue is with the mascot. It utterly awful how you have such a wall to break through before people will even listen. Wish you luck and hope the name gets changed and the poll look’s so fishy tbh and thin.
Like the majority of Americans of Mexican ancestry, I’m a Mestizo and I do not now nor have I ever believed that the term ‘REDSKINS’ to be offensive. For that matter the ‘Fighting Sioux’, ‘Hurons’, ‘UTES’, ‘Chippewas’, ‘Blackhawks’ or ‘Aztecs’ to name a few does not send a chill of anger down my spine either. Native Americans from The Yukon to Isla Grande del Tierra del Fuego are still suffering from ‘REAL’ problems, shorter life expectancy, poverty, higher rates of Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, Diabetes, unemployment, poor schools, and in some cases not being able to speak English, Portuguese or Spanish (which I can respect as a desire to maintain their cultural and racial identity from White and Mestizo peoples (Metis in Canada, I understand have their culture, which is uniquely theirs). So having said that, I believe that Native Americans have much more important issues to address than the Mascot or Team Names of the local High School, College, NFL, MLB or NHL. Fighting the name ‘Blackhawks’, ‘Seminoles’ or ‘Utes’ is not going to improve your schools or healthcare. My humble opinion of course.
The “Cherokee Great-Grandma” thing that you talked about is frustrating to me. As one of those people who does have Cherokee ancestors (very, very few), it’s frustrating when my (European) relatives are like “oh well you should get [schollarships, join the Eastern Cherokee Band to get money, etc] as if THAT’S OKAY.
I am white and blonde. I’ve never been discriminated against (by friends, classmates, government, employers) because of my ancestors.
To add to your point, I am certain that there are a lot of people out there who, like me, have small amounts of native blood who “identify” as something but only when they can get something out of it. I can very easily picture my brother saying “oh I’m Cherokee and I’m okay with it” when he is in fact as white-trash as it gets.
Thank you so much for all your articles. I’m enjoying going back and reading them (I just discovered your blog!) and I hope it’s not bothering you that I’m commenting on old articles.