Stereotypical Images of Native Americans in Sports

My first thought as I began watching the symposium on “Racist Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports” was that the symposium itself was a reflection of survivance. If survivance is a term that represents both survival and resistance, then a contemporary symposium of Native American presenters gathered to challenge the racist stereotypes and cultural appropriations in the American sporting system is a real world manifestation of the term. It exemplifies both the survival and resistance of Native Americans against the shadow of the popular stereotype. Their presence is not only represented visually and orally, it is felt. It is real.

In terms of the stereotyping and appropriating of Native Americans, the concept of sports teams was known and off putting to me. Before I had this class, read any of this information, or even thought about this topic, I had experience in the stereotypical nature of sports mascots. The high school I attended for example, was called Lehighton Area High School and it’s football team was called the Lehighton Indians. There mascot was the Lehighton Indian. If the team scored or won a game there was a chant that people would do while making a “tomahawk chopping” motion with their arms. Now, I certainly was not a big fan of football, or sports for that matter, but despite this I never liked the mascot or the name of the team. Even at the age of 16 I understood that it was racist and offensive. The stereotype was just so blatantly obvious and no one seemed to think anything of it. It was either that or they simply did not care; honestly, it was probably a little bit of both. To give a visual representation of the stereotype, I have included some images below:

But, even though I could easily see the racism in my high school mascot, there were just some appropriations I could not see. For instance, when the first speaker mentions Avatar as a stereotypical appropriation in that it depicts a people that were obviously modeled after the Native Americans as being “noble savages” who are dangerously capable of violent resistance. When I saw Avatar I thought it was one of the greatest movies I ever saw, and I still do. I just cannot help it; I am a sucker for that kind of thing, haha. But I do understand what the speaker was saying. I can see how it can be perceived as a shadowy representation of a living people that are removed from reality in that they are not only imaginary, they are also alien. They are not even human.

This is exactly what I understood to be wrong with the stereotype of the Lehighton Indian. As the third panelist says, these are images. Images are powerful; they influence how we visualize something in our mind. They influence how we engage with something. I think back now and I wonder how many people went to Lehighton Area High School over the years and took part in the “tomahawk chopping chant.” How many of those children and adults had actual experience with historically accurate Native American history, culture, and peoples? Was the Lehighton Indian all they knew of Native Americans? How sad that this is even a possibility. Furthermore, the acceptance and passionate embrace of the Lehighton Indian, his headdress of feathers, his tomahawk, and his spear gives power to the image and thus the stereotype. As the third speaker also said, it takes those from the dominant class to aid in the struggle to bring about real change. This is what is so devastating about those among this class who so openly and unquestioningly accept the stereotypical depictions of people in the popular media and mind of America. So long as they embrace these depictions, it makes these depictions ok. Not only will the racist imagery continue to disrespect the people it seeks to depict, it allows for the racist assumptions and stereotypes to exist as legitimate in the minds of people.

Now, I must admit that Vizenor was an incredibly hard read for me. I appreciated the poetic wording, but it made it more difficult for me to understand and follow exactly what he was trying to impart. The short article we had to read for today did help with this. The inclusion of Eastman’s account of the wounded at Wounded Knee and his rendition of the scene as an example of survivance helped in my understanding of the term. This quote from Vizenor about how Eastman

encircled the horrors of that massacre in stories of native courage and survivance. That sense of presence, rather than absence or aversion, is natural reason and a source of native identities. The doctor enunciated his visions, memories, and totemic creations as an author. Clearly, his autobiographical stories are native survivance not victimry. (609)

Also helped in my understanding of the full scope of the term. This is exactly what is wrong with the stereotypically racist depictions of Native Americans in stories, in the media, as mascots, and so forth. It does not represent native peoples as they are. It only represents the shadows of what they are not but have been artificially made to be. Mascots like the Lehighton Indian are examples of these shadowy images, which dehumanize an entire people into nothing more than an image, and a stereotypical one at that.