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Megan Hendrix

October 16, 2017

ESE 440

Should the Redskins change their name?

Within society today, all members are meant to feel equal and important. This might be

true for some races; but it not true for Native Americans. Many, if not all Native Americans

within todays society feel as if they are disrespected through public schools and native mascots.

Some examples of issues within schools would be, lower graduation rates within native

American students, dismissal of indigenous knowledge, and misinterpretation of these students.

A question that is asked very frequently is Should the Redskins change their name?.

This mascot is seen to be very racial towards indigenous people, which results in controversy on

whether or not they should change their name. According to Fryberg (2008), A guiding

concern, with respect to the use of American Indian mascots, is whether these indirectly acquired

stereotypes of American Indians have psychological consequences for American Indians (p.

209). This shows that these mascots might cause American Indians to feel uncomfortable or

racially abused, causing psychological consequences. A good deal of this comes from the

misinterpretation of Indigenous people within these mascots and sports team names. Studies

from Fryberg (2008) show that the mascots are not always viewed as negative towards American

Indians but, it is a reminder to American Indian participants of the limited way in which they

are represented (p. 215). This is a huge issue because American Indians are only portrayed by

the way people see them as mascots, and not by the way they should see them for who they are.
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There are many issues that impact American Indian students in public schools today.

Some of these include things like graduation rates and misconception of these students. Statistics

show that Native Americans are the least likely to graduate from high school in the United

States. According to Cerecer (2013), These alarming statistics indicate that Native youth face

serious challenges in high school environments (p. 591). Some of these challenges include not

feeling equal, feeling as if their indigenous knowledge is not important, and feeling like they are

all expected to excel on a lower level because of their race. Another issue would be when the

accomplishments of American Indians are not seen. This can be seen in the following quote:

Rather than highlighting the noteworthy accomplishments of American Indians in the

news or textbooks or their role as foundational and ongoing agents of change in the

United States, the media seems to reify the social construction of American Indians as

being disengaged from the educational process and indifferent to their career

development (Cerecer, 2013, p. 592).

This shows that instead of focusing on the good, society only brings about the stereotypes shown

towards American Indians.

The ideology of color-blind racism is seen true for some races, but it is not true for

indigenous people. This idea can be seen through the everyday things that we do in society.

Some examples of these include childrens games, Halloween costumes, and simply sitting

down. American children are socialized into playing Indian (Robertson, 2015, p. 144).

Although some people in society do not view playing Indian as being racist, Robertson (2015)

makes her point about this issue very clear when she states,

Playing Indian is racist in no way different from wearing blackface or participating in

minstrel shows because it collapses distinct cultures into one stereotypical racialized
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group. Even worse, because playing Indian is deemed socially acceptable (e.g., normal,

legitimate), any other racial or ethnic group may now participate without recognizing

the inherent racism in doing so (p. 114).

This shows that in todays society, people are oblivious to the fact that they are being racist

towards Native Americans. Today, people use so many excuses to dress up as Indians. They do

this on Halloween and Thanksgiving. Some children even make head dresses at school and wear

them the week of Thanksgiving. This might be fun for a white child, but how would this make an

American Indian feel? They would be dressing up as nothing other than themselves.

One of the main questions within this paper is Should the Redskins change their

name?. This is something that takes a lot of thought to answer; but from research and readings,

it is shown that the mascot/name is viewed as being very racist towards Native Americans. It

portrays them as that mascot instead of the people that they really are. Although one of the

studies showed that it is not always seen as negative; but it does remind the American Indians of

one of the very few ways in which they are represented. This representation is also seen in public

schools and in color-blind racism including Native Americans. The stereotypes towards

American Indians in schools today are very evident. This is because people choose to see them

for what they already know and think. Misrepresentation of American Indians is also an issue.

The idea that it is okay to dress up as an Indian or play games that are racist towards this culture

is still shown through society today. This is a very big issue that needs to be looked into further.

Something needs to be done to make American Indians feel equal within this country.