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I've never been a sports fan, so I never paid that much attention to sports team logos and mascots. I became aware at some point that naming sports teams "the Indians" or vaguely Native American/American Indian-associated things like "the Chiefs" or "the Braves" was a thing. I never liked the thing, and I agreed that those Native-themed team names, symbols, and mascots should be changed, but it was not an issue that weighed heavily on my mind. Maybe it was because I grew up in a part of the south that didn't have its own Native-themed team, so the example most familiar to me for a long time was the Atlanta Braves, a team that I've always seen symbolized by a weapon rather than a caricature of a Native American person. If there's also a stereotyped image of an "Indian brave" for that team, I never was interested in baseball team merchandise enough to find it.
But now I'm in graduate school in a different state from the one where I grew up. I don't want to connect my journal too much to my RL professional identity, so let's just say I'm at a university in a different region of the US. My university does not have Native-themed mascot, but a nearby city does have a sports team with a Native-themed mascot, and that team has a lot of fans here. And their main merchandising symbol is NOT a weapon. It's a caricature. In fact, it is THE most dehumanizing Native caricature I have ever seen. And it's everywhere in this town. I can't even describe what I feel every time I see that image, except to say that it's really bad. So bad that I avoid going to certain stores that sell things I like because they also have promotional items for that team with that image prominently display, and seeing makes me feel like crap and keep feeling like crap for a few minutes after I can no longer see it. But I can't avoid it when it's stuck on cars in the science division parking lot or printed on t-shirts and hoodies that students wear around campus. It's just . . . there, popping up in my face when I least expect it. I really, really hate it, but don't feel safe talking about how much I hate it or why to anyone I get to spend any time with in person around here.
But now I'm in graduate school in a different state from the one where I grew up. I don't want to connect my journal too much to my RL professional identity, so let's just say I'm at a university in a different region of the US. My university does not have Native-themed mascot, but a nearby city does have a sports team with a Native-themed mascot, and that team has a lot of fans here. And their main merchandising symbol is NOT a weapon. It's a caricature. In fact, it is THE most dehumanizing Native caricature I have ever seen. And it's everywhere in this town. I can't even describe what I feel every time I see that image, except to say that it's really bad. So bad that I avoid going to certain stores that sell things I like because they also have promotional items for that team with that image prominently display, and seeing makes me feel like crap and keep feeling like crap for a few minutes after I can no longer see it. But I can't avoid it when it's stuck on cars in the science division parking lot or printed on t-shirts and hoodies that students wear around campus. It's just . . . there, popping up in my face when I least expect it. I really, really hate it, but don't feel safe talking about how much I hate it or why to anyone I get to spend any time with in person around here.
