Tim Giago
Founder, Native American Journalists Association Posted: May 6, 2010
01:35 PM
Why would a group of white Prescott High School students
in Prescott, Wisc., fight for a bill to end the use of Native Americans as
mascots, carry their concerns all of the way to the State Capitol in
Madison and get Gov. James Doyle, a Democrat, to sign the bill into law on
May 5? For these dedicated students and their teacher Jeff Ryan, the
victory was sweet, and it may set a precedent for other states to follow.
Perhaps these high school students can teach a lesson to the petitioners
on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and the Spirit Lake Reservation in
North Dakota, that to be denigrated at sporting events is not an honor. It
places Native Americans on the same level as lions, tigers and bears. As
the students proclaimed, Native Americans are people, not mascots.
If these non-Indian high school students can figure that out, why is Fool
Bear at Standing Rock, and more than half of the tribe a Spirit Lake not
listening? To be mimicked, ridiculed and aped at sporting events is not an
honor and these white high school students "got it!"
The bill
passed the Wisconsin Assembly by a vote of 51 - 43 and it passed the State
Senate nip and tuck at 17 - 16. But, if not for the dedication and the
presentations by the students at Prescott High School, the bill would have
never passed. At the hearings leading up to the introduction of the bill,
Native Americans from the different reservations in Wisconsin were in
attendance and not a single one of them spoke out against the bill: They
were all united behind the students.
As one of the tools Ryan used
in his classroom to educate the students about using Native Americans as
mascots, he read some of the columns I have written for the past 28 years.
He and his students communicated with me all during the progression of the
bill. And I was amazed to observe the dedication the students devoted to
this issue. It was their school project. What started out as a lecture in
November of 2008, became a law in 2010.
After the victory, Maddie
Smith, one of the students, said, "It is still hard to believe that it
takes legislation to ensure that different cultures are treated with
respect."
Another student, Brenna Ryan, said, "We were so happy
when the bill finally passed. What many people fail to realize is that
this bill has been in the legislature for 16 years. There have been so
many people (Native Americans) who have been working for so long to make
the dream of eliminating Indian mascots and logos come true in Wisconsin
and around the United States. Hopefully other states will follow what our
state legislature did and once and for all decide that using race based
mascots and logos in public schools does not honor Native people - it
hurts them. The Native people are friends and it is time we started
treating them that way."
Jack Simones talked about the things he
learned from the process. "The only way this issue can be fully
understood is that you have to live outside of your own bubble and living
in Wisconsin, a state with 11 Indian reservations, it makes sense that we
develop that empathy and understand that the Native people of our state
have a rich history that needs to be recognized, celebrated and honored
appropriately in our schools and not with half-time chants and jigs at
football games," Simones said.
Some of the folks that have been
fighting this issue for nearly 30 years, people such as Charlene Teeters,
an art instructor at the American Indian Art Institute, and Michael Haney,
now deceased, a Seminole, who blanched at the Seminole Tribe's disregard
for feelings of other Indians in America by continuing to allow their
tribe to be used as a mascot for Florida State University, a university
that has reduced their once proud name to "Noles," would have stood and
cheered the courage and dedication of these Prescott High School students.
These students did not go without sharp, and oftentimes, nasty
criticism from their friends and neighbors in Wisconsin. "Why in the
hell are you doing this?" was one of the most frequent questions they
encountered.
As Teeters, Haney and I know, they did it because they
wanted to correct a blatant wrong, a wrong that most Americans have never
made the effort to understand. American Indians are human beings and not
mascots for America's fun and games.
To contact the teacher and
students go to jryan@prescott.k12.wi.us. Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota,
is the publisher of Native Sun News. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard
with the Class of 1990. His weekly column won the H. L. Mencken Award in
1985. His book Children Left Behind was awarded the Bronze Medal by
Independent Book Publishers. Giago was inducted into the South Dakota
Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com
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