Team Mascots

[keefe]

I am curious how people perceive the Notre Dame Mascot. It is based on an unflattering prejudicial stereotype of Irish immigrants from the 19th Century. These images were created by the leading political artists of the day, including Thomas Nast, and published in the mainstream press. The use of these images accelerated after the Civil War when Irish immigrant numbers began articulating as political power in the North's largest cities. Given the virulent, vitriolic nature of these images one would think it would follow that those offended by FSU's, Illinois', or U of North Dakota's use of Native imagery would also be repulsed by the Notre Dame mascot.   

[MUFlutieEffect]

I've always been confused as to why "Fighting Irish" is celebrated while "Fighting Illini" and the like are condemned (wrote quite a few undergrad papers on the topic, for that matter).  It would be REALLY interesting to see how the public would receive a new mascot based on a current racial stereotype (i.e. "Lawn Mowing Mexicans").  Don't get me wrong, I by no means condone such racism - just confused as to why it's okay for ND to use it when others are considered "offensive."

[brewcity77]

Two reasons I think it's accepted at Notre Dame. First, it's a stereotype of white people. As most of the deciders of these types of things are usually white, they look at the persecution of others and their own perceived guilt and are more likely to strike down offenses to non-whites than they are their own.

Second, the Fighting Irish seem to be beloved in the Irish community. Similar to how FSU keeps their mascot because of the support of the Seminole tribe in Florida, there is no outcry from Irish descendants about how offended they are by the Notre Dame mascot. I think many Irish people that don't have a school of their own to support throw their support behind Notre Dame.

[keefe]

Pekin, Illinois High School called its teams The Chinks until reality caught up with them They used the silly stylized "Asian Lettering" and had male and female students, named "Chink" and "Chinklet," dressed in an absurd combination of peasant pants and imperial court silk tops. The mascots would use a bizarre pidgin English emblematic of Hollywood's version of Asian Immigrant English. 

[keefe]

Butte County, Montana uses the Pirate Mascot. They are the Butte Pirates.

[brewcity77]

So I guess any serious discussion went out the window?

[RushmoreAcademy]

I have always wondered the same thing about the Notre Dame mascot, and wondered why it hasn't undergone the same scrutiny. I guess I just assumed maybe it had and I wasn't hearing about it.

We were talking about the mascot discussion during the Ole Miss game yesterday. I always forget that they're not the Rebel Black Bears.  It did remind me of this great student campaign though.

[Eldon]

Two reasons I think it's accepted at Notre Dame. First, it's a stereotype of white people. As most of the deciders of these types of things are usually white, they look at the persecution of others and their own perceived guilt and are more likely to strike down offenses to non-whites than they are their own.

Second, the Fighting Irish seem to be beloved in the Irish community. Similar to how FSU keeps their mascot because of the support of the Seminole tribe in Florida, there is no outcry from Irish descendants about how offended they are by the Notre Dame mascot. I think many Irish people that don't have a school of their own to support throw their support behind Notre Dame.

True, but I also remember the Sioux tribal leader(s?) were actually for keeping the name.  They said that they felt that it cast the tribe in a positive light.

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/10298

[keefe]

Two reasons I think it's accepted at Notre Dame. First, it's a stereotype of white people. As most of the deciders of these types of things are usually white, they look at the persecution of others and their own perceived guilt and are more likely to strike down offenses to non-whites than they are their own.

Second, the Fighting Irish seem to be beloved in the Irish community. Similar to how FSU keeps their mascot because of the support of the Seminole tribe in Florida, there is no outcry from Irish descendants about how offended they are by the Notre Dame mascot. I think many Irish people that don't have a school of their own to support throw their support behind Notre Dame.

I agree that there is a degree of 'White Man's Guilt Complex' involved in the elimination of offensive mascots but that doesn't explain all of it. In the case of Pekin, which has zero cultural or historical link to China, it was recognition that everything about their name was derogatory if not silly. Still, they are now known as The Dragons and continue to use that stylized "Asian Script" lettering as well as other devices incorrectly attributed to Chinese culture. Sometimes, the compromise is just as bad as the original sin.

If the guilt theory is correct then how does one explain the continued use of such icons as Chief Wahoo or Chief Nakahoma in MLB? Chief Nakahoma does someone's rendition of an "Indian War Dance" when a Brave hits a home run. One of my favorite examples of hypocrisy was watching Jane Fonda doing the Tomahawk Chop alongside her husband Ted Turner and with 50,000 others. This is the same Jane Fonda who complained that Coppola cast Filipinos as Vietnamese in Apocalypse Now, even though the movie was shot in the Philippines.

One could also argue that Bernie Brewer and the images portrayed by the Sausage Racers at Miller Park are culturally insensitive, inaccurate, or offensive and yet no one does. PepsiCo caved to pressure and eliminated the Frito Bandito and yet there is no outcry over the Mexican Bandit sausage racer.

[Eldon]

I agree that there is a degree of 'White Man's Guilt Complex' involved in the elimination of offensive mascots but that doesn't explain all of it. In the case of Pekin, which has zero cultural or historical link to China, it was recognition that everything about their name was derogatory if not silly. Still, they are now known as The Dragons and continue to use that stylized "Asian Script" lettering as well as other devices incorrectly attributed to Chinese culture. Sometimes, the compromise is just as bad as the original sin.

If the guilt theory is correct then how does one explain the continued use of such icons as Chief Wahoo or Chief Nakahoma in MLB? Chief Nakahoma does someone's rendition of an "Indian War Dance" when a Brave hits a home run. One of my favorite examples of hypocrisy was watching Jane Fonda doing the Tomahawk Chop alongside her husband Ted Turner and with 50,000 others. This is the same Jane Fonda who complained that Coppola cast Filipinos as Vietnamese in Apocalypse Now, even though the movie was shot in the Philippines.

One could also argue that Bernie Brewer and the images portrayed by the Sausage Racers at Miller Park are culturally insensitive, inaccurate, or offensive and yet no one does. PepsiCo caved to pressure and eliminated the Frito Bandito and yet there is no outcry over the Mexican Bandit sausage racer.

That's because the Mexican Bandit sausage racer is half white...the lower half, to be more specific

[brewcity77]

True, but I also remember the Sioux tribal leader(s?) were actually for keeping the name.  They said that they felt that it cast the tribe in a positive light.

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/10298

There were tribal leaders on both sides of the argument. All you need is a decent vocal minority to say it's racist and offensive and it becomes a tough fight to win. Honestly, if there were Sioux, even a minority, that felt that way, I can't really begrudge that.

I know it all comes back around to Warriors, but the simple truth is we had two options. Give in to the politics and the wishes of our neighbors or fundamentally change the way we portray the Warrior. Marquette would have been fine if they had gone away from the Indian head logo, similar to what Golden State did. But now what's done is done.

As far as MLB, I'm not sure why they still allow it. However more galling is why the city of Washington, our freaking national capitol, is too sensitive to allow their basketball team to be called the Bullets yet have no problem with calling their football team the Redskins.

[keefe]

I have always wondered the same thing about the Notre Dame mascot, and wondered why it hasn't undergone the same scrutiny. I guess I just assumed maybe it had and I wasn't hearing about it.

We were talking about the mascot discussion during the Ole Miss game yesterday. I always forget that they're not the Rebel Black Bears.  It did remind me of this great student campaign though.

There was a great 30 for 30 episode on the unbeaten 1962 Ole Miss football team - the same year the school was forced to integrate and the campus erupted in violence. The team's mascot was an anachronistic image of a Plantation Massa and there was no mistaking the antebellum flavor of the imagery the school employed to brand itself. Given the Federally mandated integration these images were highlighted and figured prominently in celebrating the all-white team's success (in fact, the first black football player at Ole Miss was only signed in 1972! Archie Manning, widely celebrated as a 'good guy' never had a black teammate until he arrived in the NFL.)

That imagery continued until 2003 when the school dropped Colonel Reb as the mascot in favor of a Black Bear, supposedly selected in honor of Faulkner's "The Bear" which is not necessarily a kid's tale about a happy talking bear a la Disney. The mascot change was at least put to a vote but the students had no say in developing the candidates. (Compared with fait accompli of Golden Eagles executed at MU.)

[keefe]

As far as MLB, I'm not sure why they still allow it. However more galling is why the city of Washington, our freaking national capitol, is too sensitive to allow their basketball team to be called the Bullets yet have no problem with calling their football team the Redskins.

Jack Kent Cooke told a reporter that the team was not about natives but the famed Virginia Redskin peanut.

[MUBurrow]

It's not so much "guilt" as it is the implicit recognition of the practical effects of past (and it would be naive to deny any present) discrimination reflecting the power dynamics/distribution of social capital existing in the world today.

All groups who are discriminated against have the tendency to "own" the discriminatory titles and imagery within their own groups as a way of undermining the symbol's power. That is why an (Irish) Catholic university would brand itself the Fighting Irish. "Oh yeah? You think we're a bunch of good for nothing drunks? Fine." Another great example is the use of racial slurs in some aspects of African American pop culture.

I think that it's irresponsible for people not affiliated with these groups to view all efforts to take ownership of discriminatory symbols as equal. Nonmbers tend to equate all of these social movements as the same, and use it as cart Blanche to (perhaps unintentionally) undermine them. "If the n-word is so bad, why do "they" get to use it with each other?" Denying a community the exceptional social power to weaken discriminatory symbols imposed upon it by others is almost as bad as creating and developing the symbols in the first place. In short, fighting Irish is okay while other racially motivated names/symbols aren't because the state of affairs no longer reflects a power dynamic where fighting Irish carries discriminatory weight. Is not just about the explicit degree to which the mere words/title are offensive, but instead the degree to which the distribution of social capital has evolved to render the words/title useless. That is what the crowd always whining about being too PC doesn't understand.

The Irish are now entirely assimilated and celebrated, and are among the top holders of social capital in America today. Fighting Irish is a relic, harkening to a time when that wasn't the case, and now stands as a sort of monument to Irish immigrants social rise. Native American mascots meanwhile, were imposed by nonmbers of the group whose symbols they purport to own. They are used at a time when Native American communities unfortunately have as little social capital as ever, and the institutions bearing their name also have terribly low admission of their members. Allowing non-native American institutions to bear these names undermines the Native American community's ability to "own" their own symbols, at a time when the world hasn't evolved much from when they were even explicitly discriminatory.  Instead, their imagery is coopted by nonmembers, and serves to desensitize the broader public from the actual state of affairs. The world hasn't changed nearly enough to erase any need for Native American communities to "own" their own symbols. That recognition and the request that Native American symbols be reserved for the social purpose of native communities empowering themselves should be respected.

[GGGG]

MUBurrow wins the internet today.

[Eldon]

How are you defining 'social capital'.  I'm used to hearing this in the context of social networks.  How do Irish-Americans (or their current ancestors, I suppose) have more social capital than Native Americans?  Why has the amount of social capital among Native Americans declined (or stayed constant)?

[buckchuckler]

There was a great 30 for 30 episode on the unbeaten 1962 Ole Miss football team - the same year the school was forced to integrate and the campus erupted in violence. The team's mascot was an anachronistic image of a Plantation Massa and there was no mistaking the antebellum flavor of the imagery the school employed to brand itself. Given the Federally mandated integration these images were highlighted and figured prominently in celebrating the all-white team's success (in fact, the first black football player at Ole Miss was only signed in 1972! Archie Manning, widely celebrated as a 'good guy' never had a black teammate until he arrived in the NFL.)

That imagery continued until 2003 when the school dropped Colonel Reb as the mascot in favor of a Black Bear, supposedly selected in honor of Faulkner's "The Bear" which is not necessarily a kid's tale about a happy talking bear a la Disney. The mascot change was at least put to a vote but the students had no say in developing the candidates. (Compared with fait accompli of Golden Eagles executed at MU.)

What's with the Archie Manning shot?  He wasn't the one keeping team all white was he?  I mean, I know QBs are given free reign sometimes, but that seems a bit much. 

[GGGG]

What's with the Archie Manning shot?  He wasn't the one keeping team all white was he?  I mean, I know QBs are given free reign sometimes, but that seems a bit much. 

How was his statement a "shot?"  He simply stated a fact.

[buckchuckler]

How was his statement a "shot?"  He simply stated a fact.

OK maybe shot was too much, but why the reference at all?  Why the "good guy" line?  Just seems weird to me. 

[buckchuckler]

But back to ND, as an American with Irish heritage, I would be more than willing to participate in some sort of class action suit to get ND to change their name.

I find it horribly offensive and would like to stop the perpetuation of a negative stereotype against my ancestors, family and myself. 

But most of all I would be looking to stick it to ND. 

[MU82]

Perhaps Native Americans feel more offended (and white folks are more  sensitive about offending them) than Irish people because for hundreds of years white folks systematically killed, raped and pillaged Indians, and then herded them onto little reservations far away from where they could encroach on white folks' ideas of the American dream.

I have to laugh -- not a ha-ha laugh, but a sad laugh -- whenever ideological idiots talk about "taking back America" from whatever group ticks them off: immigrants, socialists, minorities, the 47%, whomever. If they really wanted America to return to the greatness it used to be, they would get the hell out and take the rest of us with them so that the natives could have what we stole from them, polluted and bastardized.

During the '80s and '90s, I had the opportunity to moderate several panel discussions about the use of Indian nicknames in sports. It was interesting to hear white people tell the Native Americans on the panel that they shouldn't have been offended by the Redskins name, by the drunk-looking logo on Cleveland's baseball cap and by the Braves' promotion of the tomahawk chop. And, yes, by mascots such as Willie Wampum.

That experience helped make me less upset when Marquette caved into pressure and dropped Warriors.

I agree with brew that we probably could have kept Warriors if we weren't stubborn about trying to keep the Indian association. And once the decision was made to switch, I wish we had gone with a nickname that wasn't already being used by more than a dozen schools. Hilltoppers or Golden Avalanche would have been far more unique and more traditional, too. But that's another subject for another thread, one that has been beaten to death for well over a decade.

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents into the Irish/Indian conversation.

[Galway Eagle]

Two reasons I think it's accepted at Notre Dame. First, it's a stereotype of white people. As most of the deciders of these types of things are usually white, they look at the persecution of others and their own perceived guilt and are more likely to strike down offenses to non-whites than they are their own.

Second, the Fighting Irish seem to be beloved in the Irish community. Similar to how FSU keeps their mascot because of the support of the Seminole tribe in Florida, there is no outcry from Irish descendants about how offended they are by the Notre Dame mascot. I think many Irish people that don't have a school of their own to support throw their support behind Notre Dame.

Seems to be celebrated by Irish Americans so removed from their heritage they think ND represents them.  Anybody I know that is either a fellow immigrant or first generation hates the fighting Irish term.  Though I'll be honest being a boxer doesn't help me argue that stereotype but I still don't like it!

[Eldon]

Perhaps Native Americans feel more offended (and white folks are more  sensitive about offending them) than Irish people because for hundreds of years white folks systematically killed, raped and pillaged Indians, and then herded them onto little reservations far away from where they could encroach on white folks' ideas of the American dream.

I have to laugh -- not a ha-ha laugh, but a sad laugh -- whenever ideological idiots talk about "taking back America" from whatever group ticks them off: immigrants, socialists, minorities, the 47%, whomever. If they really wanted America to return to the greatness it used to be, they would get the hell out and take the rest of us with them so that the natives could have what we stole from them, polluted and bastardized.

During the '80s and '90s, I had the opportunity to moderate several panel discussions about the use of Indian nicknames in sports. It was interesting to hear white people tell the Native Americans on the panel that they shouldn't have been offended by the Redskins name, by the drunk-looking logo on Cleveland's baseball cap and by the Braves' promotion of the tomahawk chop. And, yes, by mascots such as Willie Wampum.

That experience helped make me less upset when Marquette caved into pressure and dropped Warriors.

I agree with brew that we probably could have kept Warriors if we weren't stubborn about trying to keep the Indian association. And once the decision was made to switch, I wish we had gone with a nickname that wasn't already being used by more than a dozen schools. Hilltoppers or Golden Avalanche would have been far more unique and more traditional, too. But that's another subject for another thread, one that has been beaten to death for well over a decade.

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents into the Irish/Indian conversation.

I don't know about you, but I didn't steal anything from anyone.  Whoever was living here at the time allowed my (poor) ancestors to come here from Poland, Greece, and Ireland.  Why should I (or my ancestors) be held accountable for what people who just to happen to share the same skin tone did to Natives hundreds of years before?  

Analogy, tell me what you think.  The Romans (English) kicked the Jews (Native Americans) off of their land and Palestinians/Arabs (Irish, Italians, Poles, etc) came and settled.  Whose land is it?

It is my understanding that the French tried helping the Natives fight the English and the Natives turned on them (french indian war).  You could argue that if the posterity of the English pillagers have to put up with the mistakes of their fathers, why don't the Natives have to put up with the mistake of allying themselves with the British (rather than the French), who would later turn on them?

[mr.MUskie]

I don't know about you, but I didn't steal anything from anyone.  Whoever was living here at the time allowed my (poor) ancestors to come here from Poland, Greece, and Ireland.  Why should I (or my ancestors) be held accountable for what people who just to happen to share the same skin tone did to Natives hundreds of years before?  

Who says the Indians were the original Native Americans?

While we're on the subjects of archaeology and legends of world-wide floods and evidence of gigantic but localized floods, I thought we might just as well throw in some more controversy by discussing the latest findings about who discovered America first.

We all know the scenario: the very first human beings to set foot in America came across the now-vanished land bridge from Siberia, and worked their way down to the very tip of Tierra del Fuego. They were northern Asian people, from whom the present-day Native Americans are descended, and before them, nobody was here. The Clovis culture (11,000 years ago) was the first, and since nobody was here before that, there's no need to dig any deeper than that. Right?

Maybe. Or maybe not. Some of the latest findings are causing whole new theories to be thought up. Examples: artifacts and skeletons are being found which bear no resemblance to Native American models. In the past, anything which pre-dated Clovis was airily dismissed as either misdated or as hoaxes, but archaeologists are finding too many of them now to ignore. Stone tools have been found in Virginia and South Carolina which do not match Native American models----but they are identical to tools made by people of the Solutrean culture.....in Stone Age Spain and France. The kicker? These tools have been dated to 15,050 years old---about 4000 years before anybody was even supposed to be entering North America from Siberia. And if people did enter from Siberia and trek down from the Northwest, why are the oldest artifacts showing up in the Southeast?

Another finding: many skulls and skeletons discovered in N and S America do not bear any racial or ethnic similarities with Native Americans. A skeleton found in Brazil from 11,500 years ago bears bone structure similar to that of present-day native Australians. Another one is identical to modern Polynesians. Was Thor Heyerdahl correct after all, when he said that people first came to America on rafts across the Pacific? Skulls from Nebraska and Minnesota, all of them anywhere from 7,840 to 8,900 years old, seem to be of European origin----even though no Europeans were supposed to be in North America prior to the Vikings in the 10th century. One celebrated find called "Spirit Caveman" resembles either a Japanese Ainu or an African Bushman.

Finds such as the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania suggest that America was a pretty crowded place for a continent that was supposed to be uninhabited before 12,000 B.C. Remains of settlements, hearths, tools, butchered animals, etc., have been found that are thousands of years older than Native American examples and bear no resemblance to them. The Pennsylvania findings consist of stone tools and woven material possibly 17,000 years old, and mastadon bones along with stone tools in an ancient firepit in Virginia are 14,000 years old.

Researchers are now speculating that prehistoric peoples from the Pacific area and southern Asia came across the Pacific to South America (a la Heyerdahl), and from Europe (following the ice sheets and living off fish and seals) to eastern N America anywhere from 3000 to 4000 years before any Native Americans ever showed up.

The political implications of this are profound. If these findings are accepted, some Native American leaders fear that their hard-won priviliges will soon be lost, since it would mean that the Europeans were here first, after all, and the Native Americans were simply another group of foreign immigrants. Some tribes, like the Shoshone, the Paiutes, and the Umatilla, are already demanding that any skeletons found in their tribal areas are to be immediately turned over to them for reburial instead of scientifically examined and (possibly) be found to be carrying non-Native American physical traits.

Anyway, it appears that America has always been a "rainbow-coalition melting-pot", even back into prehistory. I wonder, are there any Native Americans out there who read this board, and if there are, what are your thoughts concerning this issue?

[ChicosBailBonds]

Discovery Channel did a piece last year about some of the earliest known bones found in North America.  Their findings...Caucasians may have been original descendants of North America based on carbon dating.  It's a theory, nothing more, but one you don't see presented in the history books.

The theory is that these people came over via land bridge across the Bering Sea or

Who knows if it is true.  Discoveries keep happening....politics play into some of these things as well. My dad was a scientist in the petroleum industry, politics plays a lot into what is "discovered", what is allowed to be explored, etc. 


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