The
developing momentum around changing the Washington, D.C., football team's name,
including Bob Costas'
courageous comments during halftime of a Sunday Night Football game earlier
this month, has been refreshing. Using Natives as mascots, contrary to what
team owner Dan Snyder or NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would say, dehumanizes
a group of people who have faced attacks on their livelihoods since Christopher
Columbus set foot in this hemisphere.
Many will
say we have to "move on"--or that this is an issue from "the
past." But Native American communities today are impacted by systematic
discrimination today, as in the past--indeed, these communities have been some
of the most affected by government cuts, corporate land grabs and, more
recently, the government shutdown.
Consider
the 16-day-long shutdown of the federal government. Like in most such crises,
those who are at the bottom of society get hurt the most.
The Navajo
Nation in Arizona is the largest tribe in the U.S.
Currently, two-thirds
of its budget comes from federal money because of treaty promises
guaranteed to them. According to Mason Big Crow, treasurer for the Oglala Sioux
Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota , of the tribe's $80 million budget,
$70 million is from federal sources.
If the
shutdown had continued, it would
have forced many tribes to cut critical programs, such as Tribal Colleges
and Head Start programs.
Even before
the shutdown, the Obama administration and Congress had little concern for
Native peoples, and were proposing more cuts and austerity. The drive to open
the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline has left Natives on the sidelines,
instead of engaging them. After a half-hearted effort by the State Department
to hold "nation to nation" talks in May with Native American leaders
representing 10 different tribes, tribal
leaders walked out of the meeting in Rapid City, S.D.
Then, on
July 29, the White House held
its first "Council on Native American Affairs"--without one single
tribal leader being present.
According
to the New York Times, Deborah Jackson-Dennison, the superintendent of
the Window Rock Unified School District in Navajo Nation, "is in the
process of reducing the school budget to about $17 million, from about $24
million, absorbing a cut from sequestration as well as from the local
government. 'It's like getting two black eyes at once,' she said. She has let
go of 14 employees, and moved the school district down to four buildings from
seven."
Tribes
argue that they should not be affected by austerity and sequestration because
of treaty promises made by the U.S. government in the past. It's not
just about the federal government giving tribes money, but about a
nation-to-nation relationship in which the U.S. keeps its word.
Obviously,
we know that the United States has broken just about every treaty
that it has ever made with Natives, but the legal documents still gives grounds
to fight in court.
The Oneida nation in upstate New York has been running a terrific
campaign around the country to build pressure for changing the name of the Washington
football team. Their efforts counter the idea put around by sports
journalists and others that the campaign is a bunch of white liberals wanting
to be politically correct. As a result, more polls are
showing support for the name change.
But how do
people who actually live on Indian reservations feel?
One of the
most popularly quoted polls is an Annenberg Public Policy Center poll from
2004, which supposedly "found that 90 percent of Native Americans were not
offended by the name."
Never mind
the flaws in the poll and that it was taken years ago--you will hear this
attitude echoed among Native Americans. In
a recent article from Buzzfeed's Joe Flood, Elaine YellowHorse from the
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation summed up what many people on reservations think,
"There are just so many other things that I need to worry about before
that."
From my
time spent on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota , I have asked many people this same
question. Corbin Conroy, who was born and raised on Pine Ridge, said to me,
"I don't really care. We have bigger issues to deal with on the
reservation."
However,
more times than not, when I continue to ask questions, it becomes clear that
the term "redskin" is considered a racial slur, and most would favor
changing the name of the Washington football team. They just don't see this as
a top priority in their life.
What are
their "other priorities"?
Many
reservations face unemployment in incomprehensible numbers--rates like 50 to 90
percent. Many houses don't have running water, and many reservations have
housing shortages. In Pine Ridge alone, you may not see homelessness, but an
average of 17 people live in a home. When you step on many Indian reservations,
you are effectively stepping into the global South, but in the middle of the
world's richest nation.
Racial
profiling is commonplace in areas with reservations because police recognize
license plates that are from a "certain area" in the state--and a
common attitude is, "They must be Indian and are up to no good."
In other
words, it's understandable that Native American peoples might not see changing
the name of a football team thousands of miles away as their top priority when
it do anything to change their standards of living. But that doesn't mean they
support the name. As Joe Flood writes:
People,
Native American people in particular, in my limited experience, have the
ability to ignore all manner of historical insults--like the Medals of Honor
still on record for the soldiers who perpetrated the Wounded Knee Massacre, or
the faces of U.S. presidents carved into a site the U.S. government took through warfare,
forced starvation and treaty violations. That resiliency, though, seems a
pretty poor excuse for heaping on much smaller insults--like
"Redskins"--and justifying them with "See? They're cool with
it."
Those
advocating for changing the Washington team's name aren't doing so so they
can feel good. Rather, they are demanding a change in a way of thinking. It's
about no longer dehumanizing a people--and demanding justice for all Native
people in this country.
That means
not only standing up to change the name in Washington , but standing up against the
Keystone XL pipeline. It means demanding full sovereignty for Native Americans,
and insisting that the U.S. government keep treaty promises to
Natives around the country. It that means fighting the 21st century land grabs
happening on Native land and fighting racism against Natives. And, yes, it
means recognizing the type of racism that this country is founded on.
So let's
fight to change the name of the Washington football team--as part of our call
for justice for all Natives in this country.
> The article above was written by Brian Ward and originally appeared on the Socialist Worker website.
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