Every Indian I know at home is proud that successful sports teams
choose to associate their competitive spirit with the qualities they
percieved in the spirit of the Indian. I've seen more Redskins and Braves
regalia at home than on the street off the reservation. Indians were not
"losers" even in the eyes of those people who conquered us many years ago.
Strength, persistence, determination and honor are the qualities which are
perpetuated by the employment of Indian symbols. I see no offending gesture
in that atempt. In fact, if these qualities were somehow mystically re-
created in all of our people today by their public stereotyping and assoc-
iation with the "Indian," we would all be much the better for it.
There are many more serious problems affecting our people today.
Creating attention for themselves and gaining a small measure of respect
from guilty-stricken non-Indians seems to be the real motive behind this
protest. In the words of a native writer who published an article with
similar sentiments in the Calgary Herald some time back: "...I love my
people too. For me they will always be proud, humble, spiritual people
with eyes the brown of the land and hearts that echo the heartbeat of the
universe. A loving people who help me continue to define myself. And no
Tomahawk Chop could ever separate me from that."
Brothers, strengthen yourself from within and stop whining about
how others are exploiting you. They are doing nothing more than exploiting
their own symbols. Ours can never be understood by them, much less taken
away and manipulated in the "frivolity and joy" that is the strange world of
sports in North America.
Gerald Alfred [MEKX@vax5.cit.cornell.edu]