Whenever a team mascot like “Redskins” comes into question, an owner like Dan Snyder will be quick to jump up and say, “It is not our intent to harm anyone, but to honor them.”
Yesterday’s report from the American Psychological Association should put to rest any questions of “intent.” First, I don’t think Dan Snyder is ever sitting in his office, watching a game and thinking, “You know, this is a terrific way for us all to be honoring native Americans.” I think he’s more likely to be thinking something like, “Lavar Arrington sure is an expensive bench warmer,” “I bet the cheerleader third in from the left would sleep with me for $20,000,” or, “I hate trees.”
But I digress. Even if he was thinking about honoring American Indians, and his intentions actually were noble (if hugely misguided), I don’t think it should matter a whole hell of a lot. His intent, or the intent of anyone else who presides over an institution that uses a Native American name, is not more important than this, snipped from the APA’s report:
APA’s action, approved by the Association’s Council of Representatives, is based on a growing body of social science literature that shows the harmful effects of racial stereotyping and inaccurate racial portrayals, including the particularly harmful effects of American Indian sports mascots on the social identity development and self-esteem of American Indian young people.
“The use of American Indian mascots as symbols in school and university athletic programs is particularly troubling,” says APA President, Ronald F. Levant, EdD. “Schools and universities are places of learning. These mascots are teaching stereotypical, misleading and, too often, insulting images of American Indians. And these negative lessons are not just affecting American Indian students; they are sending the wrong message to all students.”
Psychologist Stephanie Fryberg, PhD, of the University of Arizona, has studied the impact of American Indian sports mascots on American Indian students as well as European American students. Her research shows the negative effect of such mascots on the self-esteem and community efficacy of American Indian students.
“American Indian mascots are harmful not only because they are often negative, but because they remind American Indians of the limited ways in which others see them,” Fryberg states. “This in turn restricts the number of ways American Indians can see themselves.”
The issue of the inappropriateness and potential harm of American Indian mascots is broader than the history and treatment of American Indians in our society say many psychologists who have studied issues of race in America. Such mascots are a contemporary example of prejudice by the dominant culture against racial and ethnic minority groups, according to these scholars.
These are pretty much the world’s foremost experts on such things. It is their job, their chosen life’s work, to study peoples’ mental processes and behavior. Their opinion matters. It matters a whole hell of a lot more than any half-ass opinion formed on the matter by Dan Snyder, Bobby Bowden, or Jeb Bush. They are, of course, entitled to their opinions… but if you’re looking for a right and wrong on the issue, I think you’re better off siding with the people that have studied the issue and gone out and done the research.
And this is also why I don’t care that Florida State can show that they have the approval of Seminole Indians living in Florida… the effect goes farther than that. It’s not like Florida State exists in a vacuum where it can only reach people in their immediate surrounding areas… those images go out to everyone across the world, and, as the study said, it has an effect on how American Indians see themselves, and how other people see them.
