Professional sports teams, including the Washington Redskins, the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves, have participated in racist depictions of First Nation culture through caricature and such demeaning agencies as the tomahawk chop.

This discrimination is being challenged in classrooms, boardrooms and, now, in court. Charlene Teters (Spokane Nation) is fighting against “the appropriation of Native American names, spiritual and cultural symbols by professional sports, Hollywood, schools and universities.” Teters and Michael Haney are founding board members of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and the Media (NCRSM).

Teters experienced culture shock on attending the University of Illinois, with its mascot, Chief Illiniwek, “buck and squaw dances” and the “Miss Illini Squaw contest.” At the halftime point of football and basketball games, the mascot would do a war dance dressed in fringed leather and a full-feathered headdress.

This “Fighting Illini,” permeates the community, “Teaching people to tolerate racism. When a race of people is targeted, dehumanized and objectified, [this] is very dangerous in an educational institution,” Teters said. She began a public protest at all home games with a sign that said, “American Indians are Human Beings, not Mascots.” She became a target of threats and was harassed constantly. She described it “as a community trying to drive this Indian family out of town.”

She received calls of support from Kenneth Sterns of the American Jewish Committee, Tim Giago (Lakota), columnist with the Lakota Times newspaper and Vern Bellecourt (Ojibway) of the American Indian Movement. Her public protests went national, and became the subject of an award-winning documentary In Whose Honor? by Jay Rosenstein.

“When Charlene first spoke up, it was like she was from Mars”, Rosenstein said. “Now some people call her the Native American Rosa Parks.”

Many of the University’s trustees, alumni and students see the mascot in another light. “I can’t imagine that the chief, who deports himself with such dignity and such solemnity, can be perceived as a racial insult or slur,” said trustee Susan Gravenhorst.

Jeff Beckham, a student who performed as the chief said, “The purpose of Chief Illiniwek, I pretty much see as two-fold. The first is that it helps us remember the people who lived on this land long before the university was ever dreamed of, and the second reason is to really honour those people.”

Since 1982, Lakota Times columnist Tim Giago has questioned the Washington Redskins’ name: “Why does the mainstream media not find it reprehensible that a professional football team uses the colour of a people’s skin as the foundation for its team mascot?”

He criticizes the commercialization of the First People’s image, calling it cultural appropriation. “If you continue to use a human being, a race of people as mascots, you’re dishonouring them, and you’re taking our self esteem.” According to Giago, there are those who think they are “honouring our Indian people.” When those same people are told the images are offensive, they get arrogant and want to maintain these names.

“Redskin” he said “is a derogatory name for a race of people – akin to the racist terms nigger, gook, kike and wop.”

When told to lighten up, his response is: “Why didn’t you guys go out and tell the African Americans to lighten up when they were protesting the hideous black face that was used for the restaurant chain that used to be called Sambo’s?” In speaking of the importance of parity and sensitivity he adds, “If you’re going to mimic, imitate and insult a race of people because they don’t have the numbers or the political clout to fight back, you’re a racist. It’s as simple as that.”

NCRSM president Vern Bellecourt said, “After having stole our country and wiping out millions of us, they now want to steal our identity, [distorting] the beautiful dance, music, spiritual and cultural symbols of our Indigenous people.”

“It not only victimizes us, but it victimizes the non-Native world as well, because they don’t really understand much about us, other than using our culture and our identity as mascots for their sports teams.”

Teters sees a connection between mascots and tribal sovereignty. If Native peoples are dehumanized and marginalized, then their concerns about treaties and social issues are not taken seriously, she said. She also noted the media “go out of their way to find one brother or sister who likes those caricatures,” which is “race-baiting” and “should be recognized for what it is.”

“This hurts because these people really need help,” she noted. “They will put them forward, as if their opinion is more important than all these other thousands of people. Whenever the issue of human rights is being addressed, there is always going to be people who are going to participate in their own oppression .”

Said Giago, “It’s not just a matter of educating the whites and non-Indians [but], in a lot of cases, we have to educate our own people. You don’t want to start a civil war among your own people.”

Bellecourt sees this issue as not just about political correctness. It’s also about the survival of Native people: “Until Canada and the U.S. begin to respect the very people that gave them their freedom, it would be a small token on their part to begin the process of giving up these team names and mascots and to rename their teams something more appropriate to what they perceive to be their culture.”

This piece originally ran in the February-March issue of the Assembly of First Nations’ publication, Messenger. Posted on rabble news with permission. Dan Smoke-Asayenes produced the piece for the Native News Network of Canada. The author is a Seneca storyteller. He co-produces and co-hosts an award-winning First Nations radio newsmagazine called Smoke Signals in London, Ontario. Every week Dan and his wife, Mary Lou, can be heard on Sundays from 6 to 8 p.m. on CHRW, 94.7 FM. You can listen to the show live by using Real Audio.