The sound of tom-toms are played on the big bass drums as the marching band stands at the ready position, their heads going back and forth as if to simulate the tomahawk chop. The pace picks up, the drums played faster and faster, reaching a frenzied crescendo as the band lets out a whoop and assorted yells.
The whole display is disgusting to me and my eleven-year-old daughter looks confused and lost. We have raised her to know who she is and where she came from. Her culture is an important part of her identity and is something she is very proud of.
The pseudo-Indian drumming is an affront to everything that she has been taught from the time she was a baby. It is the Hollywood version of who we are as a people. Blood –thirsty savages trying to disrupt the settler’s God-given right of Manifest Destiny. The tom-tom beat is an absolute fabrication, a distortion of reality.
This is not about political correctness or diversity to me and my family. This is about identity. This is about respect. We have taught the children to be proud of their heritage. We have taught the children to respect other’s cultures, to value our own and other’s differences. We do not pretend to be something that we are not. We do not appropriate another’s culture and distort it for our own uses.
Why is there such a strong need to honor one single race in the form of sports and school mascots? Is it really honorific? Why haven’t other races been so honored? Or is it just a way for the dominant society to take ownership of our culture, our history, and all the things that make us so menacing to them? They make a mockery of us and everything that we hold sacred. They churn out cartoonish mascots, make up dances, outlandish costumes and use the same old tired Hollywood version of Indian drumming.
Universities, professional teams and school districts across the country continue to use Native mascots. They need to tread lightly. It can be done with respect and decorum, but there are still vestiges of racist insensitivity on display at all levels. My son’s school has many resources at their disposal to educate themselves, the students and the community at large and they need to make use of those opportunities.
I am reminded of a conversation I had with a college student a couple of years ago. I had run down to the grocery store for some last minute Halloween items and the guy in front of me had this cheesy headdress on.
Me: “What are you supposed to be?”
Him: “An Indian.”
Me: “How ironic—I’m dressed up as a white dude.”
Him: “Why you giving me @#%&? I have a little bit of Indian in me.”
Me: “Well, I have a little bit of white in me, too.”
Him: “Does the headdress bother you?”
Me: “I’m just surprised that it doesn’t bother you, since you’re Indian and all.”
Him: “@#%$ you.”
Me: “Who’s your family? What reservation you guys from? What tribe are you?”
Him: “I don’t know, I just know that I’m Indian.”
Me: “An Indian with no pride or cultural knowledge, apparently. Or just some white dude that thought it would be funny to dress up as an ‘Indian’. Why didn’t you dress up as a Black guy or a Latino guy?”
Him: “@#% !%%@^”
Me: “Afraid you might offend someone? But the Indian was safe—what’s the likelihood of actually running into a REAL Indian, right?”
Him: “!@#% @&&##%&!&”
Me: “My kids and I are all dressing up as a white family next year—isn’t that just hilarious? Hopefully we can pull it off and look just as stupid as you do.”
We are not “casino Indians”. We do not get “per cap”. All we have is our pride and no one is going to take that away from us. If schools continue to use Indian mascots—just understand that we are not going to sit idly by if you offend us. My son is not going to take part in something that devalues his culture and his identity. His name is ZBB. He is named after an Odawa and a Mohawk chief. We are not descendents of Indians, we do not “have a little bit of Indian” in us—we are Indian.
I never want to see that look on my little Nan’s face again—my "little wildflower"—and understand that I will do whatever it takes to make sure that I never will.
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2 comments:
honestly stuff like that usually makes me uncomfortable, but there's really no point in being confrontational about it. there's a difference between friends and I bullshitting with each other about asian stereotypes, and other people who I don't know come up to me and posed a Bruce Lee stance and say "ching ching chong chong". You just gotta shrug and go, "whatever."
i dont like being called a chink. i don't like it when people talk about asians like that to me. (being half i see it alot) projecting stereotypes on me (usually unaware that i am asian). i am glad for the progress american society has made in coming to understand and respect asian and asian-american culture. i'm glad there is not a football field of kung-foo ninja jerks on national television. though i would laugh at the absurdity of it the first time, that only goes to show how mainstream that cultural awareness is; that that is an evil stereotype and its rediculous. native american culture has not crossed this threshold in the american psyche. (it has in its own circles though, you should meet Ms. Ima Pee-You sometime.)
i will never go to an FSU game. when i see those indian head bounty signs, you know, the ones that look like an old penny, i feel the blood soaked earth, and it bothers me others don't feel that.
there are little pluses like, the terracotta sculpture made by a pueblo artist (from acoma?) that looks like a a field of axes with a traditional relief pattern. that's a little trace of native expression. sometimes i go by it and touch it just to feel connected with my old home in new mexico.
But the rest is some college pep rally BS. and its not very nice. I don't care what tribe signs off on it. (i have the feeling there are kick backs involved there.) the tragety is very few FSU students are going to visit a feast day, throw, or powwow or become involved in native culture so, they will go on guiltlessly perpitrating this nonsense.
sometimes you gotta just say no. no to the bounty head picture, no to the chop, no to the war dance song (which i think hollywood lifted from FSU actually), no to the fake powwows. do not scalp'em, no to the week long drumming. no to the 'war paint'. no to the confused hodgepodge of 'culture' the mascott is made of. its just ugly. the ugly american, in is own country too.
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