“Redskins” insults Native Americans

By Mandi Linder, The Marquette Tribune

Last Monday the Supreme Court refused to review a case against the NFL that the name “Redskins” violates trademark law.

Trademark law prohibits the registration of names that “may disparage … persons, living or dead, … or bring them into contempt or disrepute.” As reported by Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, “The Supreme Court was being asked only to review whether the claim was brought too late, not whether the nickname was offensive.”

In July of 1994 Marquette changed their mascot from Warriors to Golden Eagles. I wasn’t at Marquette when the change took place, so I did a bit of research to learn more about it.

I learned that the reason for the change was that the university was intent on not offending American Indians. I learned that there was an extremely negative reaction by students, alumni and fans that can still be felt today. In fact, one person even stated, “Who, in their right mind, could possibly consider being called a “warrior” derogatory in any way, shape or form? The name change remains as outrageous today as it was all those years ago.”

And therein lies the problem.

To claim that you can’t possibly understand how such caricatures could insult another human being is the worst sort of ignorance. And the papering of campus with the flyers seen Wednesday morning didn’t just speak to ignorance.

In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling coupled with the original reasoning behind Marquette’s mascot change suggested a more willful, aggressive racism that, directed at any other ethnic population, would’ve been recognized by everyone as abhorrent.

It is here that I should admit that I have no problem with the Warriors name. “Warriors” is not a term owned by any one ethnicity or nationality. In fact, one suggestion made when Marquette was contemplating a name change was the possibility of keeping Warriors, but amending the image to reference Joan of Arc as a Warrior. That’s perfectly acceptable.

What I do have a problem with, and when I do feel insult, is when names turn derogatory or mascots and logos caricature a race of human beings. “Redskin” is the Native American equivalent of the “n” word. The fact that I can write one and not the other in print is argument enough that something is wrong in our society.

It was not the flyers themselves that made me pause, but the spirit in which they were created and posted. The creators were not just thumbing their noses at an ethnic group and insinuating that, with the recent Supreme Court decision, it’s okay to once again demean Native Americans with politically incorrect caricatures.

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