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INDIAN MASCOTS: A PAST GRIEVANCE, OR CURRENT ISSUE?

Posted on May 9, 2008 - Filed Under Indian Mascots |

Honor Indians Institute received an email a couple of weeks ago from Jill Beattie, a student at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky. She wrote and said that she wanted to write a paper about current efforts to stop the use of Indian mascots. She first needed to get the topic of her paper approved by her professor. When she approached her professor about the Indian mascot topic, her professor discouraged the topic because, “That is more of a past grievance than a current issue….“

Feeling a bit rebellious, she wrote to me and said, “I struggled to come up with another topic for days, but I keep running into this brick wall…. I have decided to write the paper anyhow, and hope that my grade doesn’t suffer for it. I mean, the very fact that there are still Native American-influenced images in use as mascots makes it current, right? …. so I don’t have a choice but to write about it.”

We agreed that it is still a current issue! We cited the “current” Indian mascot controversies a the University of North Dakota, Natick, Massachusetts High School, University of Utah, Newberry College, Cleveland Indians, and the Washington Redskins. We could go on, but there are more than enough current Indian mascots issues to write about.

She did write her paper, and we promised to reward her efforts by posting her paper on our website. We are happy to present our guest writer: