Changing Your Mascot

According to Pond-Cummings (2008), a young man wearing a headdress and tribal war paint can epitomize football in America, all while echoing traditional Native American chants for four to six hours at a time. This is done in the name of “Supporting our team,” whilst forgetting that doing this mocks the culture and history of those proud Natives. You would think that this stops at colleges and professional sports, but it doesn’t. It actually starts earlier in the high school ranks. Often times this type of behavior is perpetuated under the premise of school pride, all while hurting the same parents and students supporting their community. The continued use of racially charged, as well as sexist team names only continues to create the divide that exists in our schools.

According to Beres (2005), a high school in Pekin, Illinois had its name changed in 1981 from “Chinks” to the “Dragons”.  The term “Chinks” is a derogatory term for the Chinese originating back to the Korean War. According to Toporek (2013), a California school was admonished in 2013 for using the term “Arabs” as their mascot and used negative imagery for their mascot, which they thought showed respect for early Arabian farm workers that helped build the community. While most of these names and mascots were chosen without malice, you do not know how people will react to them until you poll or survey your local community.