AMST100 Umass Boston Popular Culture in America Discussion 500 words Read https://chgs.elevator.umn.edu/asset/viewAsset/57ed7f0a7d58aee455904381#57ed7f047

AMST100 Umass Boston Popular Culture in America Discussion 500 words

Read https://chgs.elevator.umn.edu/asset/viewAsset/57ed7f0a7d58aee455904381#57ed7f047d58ae1d2f9043a8

What does it mean to “honor” someone? Who decides what is or is not an honor? How do issues of racism and ethnocentrism play out in this country’s actions when “honoring” Native Americans? Why do you think caricatures such as Little Black Sambo and the Frito Bandito were banished long ago while the Cleveland Indian logo (Chief Wahoo) remains? (If you don’t know what these other characters are, please make sure you Google them.) What is the impact of stereotypes on the individuals who are being stereotyped? The NFL Must Stop Promoting a Racial Slur
http://time.com/4859656/washington-redskins-dan-snyder-supreme-court/
Jacqueline Pata & Ray Halbritter | Time | July 26, 2017
Here is a good rule of thumb: If your team name requires a landmark court order protecting racist hate
speech, then it is a signal you should change your team’s name. Such should be the lesson of the recent United
States Supreme Court ruling that federal trademarks can be registered, even if they are offensive of derogatory
— a case needed by the NFL to protect the Washington, D.C., professional football team’s name. And yet in
response to the ruling, the team’s billionaire owner, Dan Snyder, declared “I am THRILLED!”
At one level, Snyder’s celebration was unsurprising and illustrative: A billionaire team owner rejoiced over the
fact that he gets legal protection to continue marketing, promoting and — most importantly — making money
off a dictionary-defined racial slur. But at another level, the case and the team’s reaction to it provides a
powerful reminder of both the National Football League’s hypocrisy — and the ways in which bigotry is turned
into a for-profit enterprise.
Every major Native American organization in the country — joined by hundreds of religious and civil rights
organizations, political leaders from both sides of the aisle and at various levels of government, sports icons,
top journalists and news publications, and other thought leaders from all walks of life — has spoken out
against the use of the epithet because of the harm it causes. Studies have repeatedly highlighted the
devastating damage to self-esteem and overall mental health that exposure to this word causes for Native
American children. Exposure to mascotization has also been shown to encourage discrimination and prejudice
toward Native Americans by those of other races. The obligation to not use the R-word is a moral one.
Every major English dictionary describes the R-word as a derogatory way to speak about indigenous peoples.
The term was used to describe the bloody scalps of Native Americans to be exchanged for a bounty. It is a term
screamed at Native Americans as they were dragged at gunpoint off their lands, and it was chosen as the
team’s name by one of America’s most renowned segregationists, George Preston Marshall, who was the last
by a decade to integrate his team and only did so under threat of action against the organization by the federal
government.
Despite that opposition and that ugly history, the team has utterly disregarded the unavoidable truth that the
R-word is degrading. Instead, Snyder and his franchise have chosen to focus on whether or not they can legally
get away with using this slur, irrespective of the damage and offense it causes.
Snyder’s euphoria, though, misses a key and simple point: Just because you can do something, certainly does
not mean that you should.
There is a wide range of things that are legally protected in our free society, but we choose not to do them
because as responsible, ethical adults we understand they are not in the best interest of ourselves, others or
society as a whole. Just because the laws of our nation make it legally permissible to slur somebody and to use
vile and grotesque language does not make it right.
To be sure, defenders of the name typically insist that the mockery and monetization of Native Americans are
well-meaning attempts to “honor” us. Being slurred is anything but an honor. Unlike Snyder, Native
Americans are not “thrilled” about continuing to see our culture and heritage mocked in the form of sports
mascots.
Whether or not you agree with the recent Supreme Court from a freedom of speech standpoint, the court’s
ruling — and Snyder’s response to it — has put the Washington football franchise in the proper historical
context. The team now proudly stands with others, like the National Socialist Party of America and crossburning bigots, as famous voices of bigotry who needed landmark court decisions to spread their hate. From
this point forward, whenever neo-Nazis, white supremacists, discriminatory organizations or any citizen who
is fine with using bigoted and harmful rhetoric wants to protect and trademark their hate speech, Washington,
D.C.,’s NFL team will serve as an example for justification of using repulsive racial slurs.
From a legal perspective, Snyder will technically be protected. But the ruling only intensifies the enduring
question that still remains: Does the NFL and its Washington franchise want to remain the modern era’s most
famous legal symbol of bigotry?
Unfortunately for now, the answer appears to be yes.
Extra: “Illinois trustees vote to retire Chief Illiniwek”
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Illinois trustees vote to retire Chief Illiniwek
Associated Press
URBANA, Ill. — The University of Illinois swept aside the last vestiges of Chief Illiniwek
on Tuesday, voting to retire the mascot’s name, regalia and image.
The school will continue to call its sports teams the Fighting Illini under the resolution.
Chancellor Richard Herman is to decide how and when Chief Illiniwek’s name and image
will stop being used and licensed to apparel makers and others.
Activists and some American Indians have long complained the chief is demeaning.
Backers defend him as an honorable tradition.
The school decided in February to end performances of the chief, leading the NCAA to
lift sanctions that had barred Illinois from hosting postseason sports since 2005. The
NCAA had deemed Illiniwek — portrayed since 1926 by buckskin-clad students who
danced at home football and basketball games and other sports events — an offensive
use of American Indian imagery.
Trustee David Dorris offered the only dissent Tuesday among the 10 voting members.
“When you look at Chief Illiniwek and you see hate, shamefulness and embarrassment,
perhaps you should sit down and consider where those feelings come from,” he said
before the vote.
Board chairman Lawrence Eppley voted for the resolution but said he agreed with
Dorris’ assessment that the chief had been a proud tradition for many years.
“Certainly my vote is not intended to dishonor anybody’s memories or to deny the fact
that it’s been a great tradition,” Eppley said.
The board Tuesday also took the unusual step of ratifying the February decision. The
earlier decision came without a vote from the board, which Eppley has said wasn’t
needed. Nonetheless, board spokesman Thomas Hardy said voting now could blunt any
legal action claiming there should have been a vote.
A state lawmaker asked the attorney general’s office whether making the decision
without a vote was legal.
Board members also voted down Dorris’ resolution that would have directed the
university to join a lawsuit filed by the last two students to portray the chief. The suit
asks a judge to determine whether the NCAA could sanction Illinois over the mascot.
Board member Robert Pterling told Dorris his resolution would only postpone the
inevitable.
“The time has come,” he said. “[The chief] bothered a whole lot of people for a long
time.”
Graduate student Genevieve Tenoso, a Lakota Sioux, told the board before the vote that
by not doing away with the chief sooner, they helped create an atmosphere in which she
sometimes didn’t feel safe.
“I haven’t had one single day on this campus when something didn’t remind of the
Indian you prefer me to be rather than the living, breathing native person that I am,” she
said.
— “Illinois trustees vote to retire Chief Illiniwek.” ESPN.com. Retrieved
09.27.2009. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2796923&type=story

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