Home | About Us | Contact

Us

Submit Articles | Member Login | Top Authors | Most Popular Articles | Submission Guidelines | Categories |
RSS Feeds

Welcome to seo-ceo.com!

Articles » Politics » Commentary >> View Article

The Game Is the Name By: J Square Humboldt

Shakespeare could wax poetic about 'What's in a Name?' because he didn't have to
contend with sports mascots ...
Forgot Password? New
User? It's the politically-correct issue in America that refuses to subside. I consider myself
to be an enlightened cyberbeing, but I contend there are just some topics that blur the
bigger picture of an ethically responsible society, and complaining that mascots can
be degrading is near the top of the list.
Home Based Business A quick check of Webster's Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary defines
Health & Fitness 'mascot' as 'any person, animal or thing supposed to bring good luck by being
Arts & Entertainment present.' So, it would seem that a team mascot is an honorable title. Most mascots in
Loans American sports had their origins in the early 1900s. Back then, teams fumbled
Small Business around with quaint monickers until they gradually realized the tremendous marketing
Alternative Medicine value they carried. The New York Highlanders became the more regionally-
Business identifiable Yankees, for instance, and the Chicago Cubs took their nickname so
Vehicles newspaper editors could more easily fit it into headlines. Distinguished symbols like
Religion Tigers and Giants appeared. Unique features like White Stockings and Red Stockings
Internet Marketing evolved into the more headline-friendly and spelling-special White Sox and Red
Weight Loss Sox.
Pets
Beauty One of the earliest attempts at humor in mascot-anointing was made by the Brooklyn
Marketing nine of baseball's National League. Urban legend wasn't a known phrase back then,
Relationships but it farily describes the allusion to fans who 'dodged' trolley fares to get a free ride
to Ebbetts Field and watch the game. Those 'bums' were called Dodgers, and their
View all Categories favorite team became christened as such.

Ironically, that drift toward the whimsical --- probably intended to portray sports in
its proper context as a divertissement of life --- may have been the root of
Submit indignation two generations later.

The social upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s were certainly justified, in my
view. Civil rights needed to come to the fore, and the resultant improvement in how
all peoples were perceived was a great step forward for mankind. Still, there's a
difference between significant awareness and pedantic perception in any movement.
Thus, in my view, when certain Native Americans first raised the mascot controversy
in headlines of the time, the attention afforded was only due to its being sucked into
the backdraft of searing human rights campaigns.

Personally, I've always thought the issue had as much relevance to their legitimate
concerns as bra-burning did for women's rights.

Think about it. Native Americans aren't alone in being designated as mascots. In
accordance with Webster's Dictionary definition, other persons given the distinction
include the Irish (University of Notre Dame) and Scandinavians (Minnesota
Vikings). Both of these ethnic groups endured their moments of discrimination in the
annals of American history, too. So far, neither has mounted a protest about being
characterized as a good luck symbol for a sporting organization.
Don't even try to broach the 'caricature' argument as a reason why the Native
American situation is different. Perhaps Notre Dame uses a leprechaun logo now,
but the term 'Fighting Irish' was a clear reference to barroom brawlers, a
stereotypical low-life trait at which immigrants from the Emerald Isle were
perceived to be quite proficient. As to the Scandinavians, there is no evidence that
even one Viking was ever so dim as to go into battle with a set of heavy horns on his
helmet; why would any warrior charge into a kill-or-be-killed scenario wearing
anything that could directly impede his ability to win? (The image of horns came
from priests' drawings of Viking attacks, attempting to equate them to the Devil
incarnate, and it was Wagner who popularized this image when he staged his epic
Ring of the Niebelung.)

Cleveland's baseball team sorted through a number of mascots in their early days.
'Spiders' just didn't have that 'je ne sais crois' of marketing sizzle. They were the
'Naps' for a while, in honor of their star player-manager, Napoleon Lajoie. So, when
they finally settled on 'Indians' in correlation to one of their first star players ---
Louis Sockalexis, a Native American --- the monicker may not have begun as a
tribute to him, but it has since memorialized his legacy. The evidence indicates the
term was derogatorily applied to all members of the Cleveland team in the 1890s
because it dared to have the fortitude to allow an Indian to play for them. Since then,
Sockalexis has been recognized as being as much of a pioneer for minority
involvement in major sports as the great Jackie Robinson was fifty years later.

Yes, the team uses a caricature of a Native American as its logo now. In fact, Chief
Wahoo is perenially one of the hottest-selling logos on sports merchandise. It far
outsells the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets orginal logo, which is honoring the
valiant Ohio battalion that fought so honorably in the Civil War. We haven't heard
historical societies from that great state howling with indignation that this is done by
putting a green insect in a Union soldier's uniform. Instead, the odds are they're
pleased that more of the North American public has become aware of the Blue Jacket
history than ever before, just as the Cleveland Indians can keep alive the memory of
Sockalexis. Some protestors say Chief Wahoo has 'shifty' eyes and that makes him
even more demeaning. I, for one, never drew that connection, but if anyone else did,
why wouldn't they be laughing and demeaning the Oklahoma University Sooners?
After all, that term originally implied cheaters getting a jump on staking claims to
land being opened for settlement.

There are many more examples. I simply don't see Native Americans being unduly
isolated in this context, and no one else involved is feeling belittled.

The Washington Redskins originated in Boston, home of baseball's Red Sox and
Braves in the 1930s. They were also called the Braves back then, because they
played in that team's stadium. However, when they wound up getting better terms to
locate in Fenway Park, they didn't want to confuse the paying public by being Braves
but playing in the Red Sox stadium. Their solution made sense: they incorporated
references to their origins and their new game site by changing their name to
Redskins. The logic apparently didn't register with enough fans, though, and the team
soon exited to the nation's capital.

The point here is that the Redskins name wasn't derived as a slur, but as a facilitation
to distinguish the team's new --- albeit transitional --- home. Furthermore, 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 its
population's majority consisting of minorities. The connotation of that nickname
being demeaning, as in the Cleveland Indians case, just doesn't emerge from its
context.

My impression, then, remains that the mascot controversy has its sole value in the
publicity it gives those organizations who are raising it. Pro and college sports are
more visible than ever in the USA, and what better way is there to affix one's
organization to higher 'page rankings' than making headlines in the Sports section of
newspapers and broadcasts?
 The matter isn't going away anytime soon. Now the NCAA --- college sports'
governing body --- has decreed that any university with a Native American mascot
can neither host a championship event nor use their mascot in any championship
event. Some schools have successfully been granted exceptions, which makes even
less sense to me. Does this mean that Florida State's Seminoles, for example, are less
demeaning to Native Americans than North Dakota's Fighting Sioux (a traditional
college hockey power)? How hypocritical is that? If they're contending that degrees
of discrimination exist due to local circumstances, then they're admitting to a
targeted sensitivity beyond society's pale, which is discriminatory in itself. How can
such a position be rationalized with a clear conscience?

Mascots, no matter how commercialized, are still nothing more than whimsical
symbols. Society as a whole understands that, just as it realizes the stylized violence
in Grimm's Fairy Tales leaves no lasting scars on the psyches of children who
innocently absorb them. Those who claim to the contrary only risk trivializing
themselves and the credibility of their greater cause.

Nowhere in the country do such topics remain in a lighthearted perspective more

than in Orofino, Idaho. That's the site of the state's mental hospital. The local high
school's teams are called the Maniacs.

No one protests, unless the teams don't play hard.

See All articles From
Total Views : 20 Word Count Appx. : 1395
Author

© 2006seo-ceo.com. All Rights Reserved. Use of our service is protected by our

Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
Website Design and Developed by seo-ceo