Last June, the US Trademark and Patent Office canceled the trademark for the Washington Redskins. In general, the issue over the team's name, which some consider offensive, has caused a lot of controversy ever since its beginning. Recently, human rights activist Kerry Kennedy (daughter of Bobby Kennedy, former wife of Andrew Cuomo) wrote a column in the Boston Globe that shone some light on the plate of Native Americans in the present-day US.
The point of the column was to say that Native American issues cannot be solved by simply changing the name of a football team; there are deeper, more ingrained issues at hand here. Native Americans face an extraordinarily high poverty rate (28% vs. 15% for the rest of the US population), and 8 of the 10 lowest-income counties in the US are predominately Native American. Ultimately, the column argues that the US should give tribes more autonomy over their land and encourage the preservation of tribal cultures.
The way Native Americans fit into politics and public policy has always fascinated me; I think that one of the underlying issues is that the Native American vote isn't given that much attention in places other than Arizona, the Dakotas, and Montana, where they vote heavily Democratic. The fact that few politicians don't have a large incentive to care about issues important to Native Americans (they represent a too small amount of the electorate, but there are still 3 million Native Americans who live on reservations), has been apparent in public policy. Kennedy's column briefly talks about how federal budget cuts in 2013 were devastating for tribal governments. Another example would be how Native American women were left out of the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Furthermore, mental health services for Native Americans are nowhere near adequately funded, which is especially troubling due to the alarmingly high rates of suicide and alcoholism on reservations.
Kennedy also mentions cultural preservation as another way to help the Natives, which got me thinking about this OpDoc I enjoyed from the New York Times about the difficulty of preserving tribal languages.
I have some questions (not meant for everyone to respond to every question):
- This is going back a little bit, but how important/offensive do you think the name "Redskins" is for Native Americans?
- What do you think our priorities should be when addressing Native American issues (health care, mental health, education)?
- Why do you think Native Americans vote solidly for Democrats?
- What is the importance of preserving tribal traditions?
7 comments:
*Go me for accidentally deleting my own comment* Regarding your third and fourth question, I think Native Americans largely vote Democratic because they may think that the Democrats in office will be more likely to provide the programs they need, since, as you mentioned, many reservations have extremely unfunded services in combatting poverty or mental health, as examples. Another reason for voting liberal may be because the Democratic party is typically more inclusive towards minorities and low-income demographics in their policy, which are both characteristics of the Native American population. As for why it is important to preserve tribal traditions, I think the reason is an obvious one - to respect those whom not only lived on American soil first, but also suffered extreme mistreatment in the past.
In regards to your first question, naming sports teams after Native Americans is a long and complicated tradition in American sports. Many teams, from high school to college to professional, have changed their name to avoid offending anyone. But the Redskins, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Blackhawks and others still exist. Redskins owner Dan Snyder is adamant about keeping the name probably because he's stuck with it for so many years that he's worried that he'd look foolish caving now. Although plenty of Native Americans have said that they're not offended by the name, groups have spoken out in protest. That should be all of the evidence that Snyder needs that it offends a significant portion of the population. My guess is that we don't see a name change until we see an owner change, but if the league starts taking his money away, he'll change his mind very quickly.
Nick, I appreciate your perspective, but I am going to have to disagree. I think that the cruelty exhibited at the Carlyle School in the late 1800's should put any notion that assimilation is the mindset to go in on this issue with is the wrong way to go. I think that we have to recognize that this is a population that has been underprivileged ever since the Europeans set foot on this continent. I do agree that Native Americans, as people who suffer economic hardships, may tend to support Democratic candidates in hopes of receiving economic assistance, which Democratic officeholders are more willing to do. I also think that it might be for community reasons -- they tend to vote more or less united, so if a few leaders are supporting Democratic candidates, I think the rest of the tribal nation may just catch on.
@Nick,
Students alerted me to your comment as it does appear to cross the line of the mutual respect policy. Granted, you were prompted to discuss "what is the importance of preserving tribal traditions" and you are honestly reporting your own lack of respect for said traditions. How much do you know about those traditions and their historical, religious, and spiritual dimensions? Without hijacking the thread, please consider whether your response would be any different if applied to a minority religion. Native American culture might have an effect on economic competitiveness (as could geography, the legacy of forced migration onto less desired land, public health issues, relatively poor educational institutions) but I object to painting with a broad brush and declaring all Native traditions inferior on the basis of a overbroad association with economic outcomes.
Does the West Coast of the USA have a culture that produces value, or does it economically benefit from being beautiful and attracting tourists? Alaska generates a lot of revenue based on oil wealth, which has nothing to do with culture. Does the (heavily Caucasian) Appalachian culture produce anything of value? Coal is not a cultural product, right? Do we blame rural white poverty on their culture? Should we?
What I don't know about Native American culture could fill a library, but I do know that many of America's founding elites had a deep respect for Native cultures even as they recognized the inherent economic conflict around the concept of property.
Perhaps Native Americans don't often vote Republican because people don't associate with a political tribe largely comprised of people that don't respect them, and have come to a position of disrespect without first making an effort to imagine life from their point of view.
Claiming that Native Americans will not ever come close to matching the economic success of the society at large without abandoning life on the reservations is a far different thing than disrespecting their culture by putting the word traditions in quotes, like they aren't real traditions, or blithely declaring non-Native culture superior on the basis of I'm not sure what.
IOW you can be pro-assimilation without coming across as prejudiced but your choice of words did not hit that mark. As such, I think it is in your personal self-interest to delete your comment.
signed,
a longtime defender of the Washington Redskins who changed his mind about that only a few months before Charles Krauthammer did.
Hello, no, I am not a senior - but by request, I will offer a few thoughts.
Regarding the Redskins' decision to change their name, I am reminded of a similar debate a few years back, and today, I am experiencing its outcome.
What is known today (for the first year) as East Residence hall was once Aycock Residence hall in honor of the former North Carolina governor Charles Aycock. Though most would think that the mere pronunciation of his name and the knee-slap reactions that follow should have been the reason for the name change, the real reason is that Gov. Aycock was a devout white supremacist known for his open racism.
A story of how this change unfolded can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/19/duke-aycock-hall_n_5511580.html
http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2014/06/17/aycock-renamed-following-student-leaders-call-action
Indeed, in both the posts's case and the residence hall's case, history could not and cannot be rewritten, and the argument that Native American issues and racism cannot be solved by changing a name is also true. However, the students who fought to change the dorm's identity did not seek to rewrite history's identity but to ensure that we do not honor or glorify this dark past. To accept "Aycock" or "Redskins" as an identity is, in a sense, to accept the connotations that each brings with it, so in stripping the sports team or dorm of its former name, the past never changed, but it sends a powerful message that racism will not be tolerated or included either in the present or in honoring the past.
However, I think President Brodhead made a very important point about education. While it is important not to glorify these past events, it is equally important not to forget them. Thus, Gov. Aycock and his actions are remembered through a plaque in the residence hall, so that while his name won't be one that the residence of East Duke will stand for, it won't be one that will be forgotten. And I think this process serves as an analogy for the Washington Redskins situation - that changing the name sends a powerful message that the racism against Native Americans serves no place in today's society, but I only hope that the past will not be left for the dust, for "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana).
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