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| Native Seahawks fans (and one Broncos fan) enjoying the Super Bowl without Redface & cultural appropriation! |
In
an interview
on a radio show in September, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said “I
know the team name is part of their history and tradition, and that’s
something that’s important to the Redsk*ns fans. I think what we
have to do though is we have to listen. If one person is offended, we
have to listen.”
Well,
this past weekend the hashtag #NotYourMascot created by our group,
Eradicating
Offensive Native Mascotry,
was tweeted 18,000 times during the Super Bowl with many of these
tweets addressed to Goodell himself via his twitter account
@nflcommish. I had come up with the hashtag only the week before as
our previous hashtag #Changethename had been taken over by spammers
from India (ironic, I know) and was being used to sell things like
real estate.
Some
of the tweets criticized Goodell’s comments at a pre game press
conference
claiming the term Redsk*ns honors Native Americans. Despite this
assertion, Goodell refused to answer when asked if he “would call a
[Native American] a Redsk*n to his face?” throwing doubt on whether
it was an honor or simply a Jim Crow-era artifact a few are unwilling
to give up. The latest study of the team’s fans found only 25%
would be bothered by a name change.
Initially,
some of our allies like Fans
For a New Tradition
(fans who support a name change) couldn’t understand why we would
be tweeting during the Super Bowl. After all, the Redsk*ns weren’t
playing in it and haven’t played in the Super Bowl since 1992. The
team is said to suffer under the “Harjo
Curse” named
after Suzan Harjo (Muscogee Creek), a long-time advocate for changing
the name. We explained it was to keep the pressure on the owner
Daniel Snyder, but I was also inspired by the images that were
showing up in my social media feed of Native people enthusiastically
supporting their teams and sharing their culture as an expression of
that support on their own terms.
And
not just images of Native fans on Facebook decked out in their team’s
gear, but also there was the Quinault/Chinook wood carver who made a
dancing
Seahawk inspired
by his heritage. I even bought my family t-shirts from Salish
Style,
a native-owned clothing company that made their own Seahawk gear
featuring the logo done in traditional Northwest style. This
willingness to share their culture stood in complete contrast to the
taking of culture exemplified by the Redface donned by so many
Redsk*ns fans.
As
a Dakota, I am particularly offended by the wearing of chicken
feather versions of our eagle feather headdresses and I blogged about
it here: Washington
Redsk*ns, Indian Mascotry & Owl Man
and here at ICTM, Why
We Still Mourn Wounded Knee.
My ancestor Owl Man wore his headdress, given to him as a mark of
honor, when he came to the White House in 1867. Our Dakota people did
not fight so hard to survive so football fans could honor our
“warrior spirit” by wearing our sacred headdresses to their
sporting events while drinking beer.
After
we decided on our new hashtag, we kept #NotYourMascot under wraps and
shared it only within our social media circles through direct
messaging and email. We wanted to make sure it was not co-opted by
spammers, too.
Then,
on Saturday night at 9pm Eastern, we unveiled it to the world. We
were advised to do this by Suey
Park
a social media activist, and writer who had great success with her
hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick. It trended to number one nationally
earlier this year and received a great deal of media coverage. Still,
I was doubtful our hashtag could gain trend during the Super Bowl.
Then,
a half an hour in, Suey Park sent me a screenshot of us trending
nationally. I credit this to our allies in the Asian American and
other people of color communities online. We had like-minded sports
fans like Fans for a New Tradition and sports writer David
Zirin.
We had thousands of Native people who were tweeting their hearts out
to make sure they were heard in a country where we so often are not.
When
we were strategizing at our Facebook event page “
Super Bowl Twitter Storm”
one of our members Sarah Little Redfeather Kalmanson (Ojibwe)
mentioned the Declaration of Independence would be read out loud
between 5:30-6pm. We decided to target our tweets at the moment when
Thomas Jefferson’s description of our ancestors as “merciless
Indian savages” was read. But we never heard the words—they had
been edited out. It made me wonder why doesn’t the NFL simply edit
out other offensive words like Redsk*ns? After all, the Declaration
of Independence is of more historical significance than a football
team.
And
then, once again, #NotYourMascot trended during the Super Bowl,
itself. According to an Al
Jazeera article
it was tweeted over 18,000 times. Many of our tweets linked to the
NCAI Proud to Be ad
and helped double its views to nearly one million on YouTube.
On
Monday, Indian Country Today put together a wonderful article (“Not
Your Mascot’ Trends on Twitter Over Super Bowl Weekend)
featuring a photographic gallery of 37 #NotYourMascot tweets. What
struck me as I scrolled through them was how diverse they all were. I
loved how they reflected the individuality of each Native person who
wrote them and yet, they were all saying the same thing: we are
#NotYourMascot!
I
also read wonderful blog posts by Native supporters of #NotYourMascot
like Chahta Summer at Surviving
Summer. Most
amazing to see was ‘NotYourMascot’ Anishinabe poetry by
Anishinaabewiziwin.
She wrote, “ooooo nokomis/cradled deep and low/anishinaabe super
bowl/four billion years old/hiy! hiy!/#NotYourMascot”
So
many Native people and our allies made this happen. Danielle Miller
(Dakota) who put together an amazing list of tweets for people to use
and Toby Vandlingham (Yurok) who put together meme after meme which
he shared with all of us at his Facebook page I
Am Not Your Mascot.
Also, Apache
Skateboards
artist Douglas Miles and his amazing tweets combining his art and
photography honoring his people. And so many others at EONM and many
others via Twitter and Facebook. It has been honor to work with all
of you! Social media is a lot like our people. Individuals matter,
but it is what we do together that really matters.
Will
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell respond? Well, even if he doesn’t
this time, we will keep up the pressure on him and Redsk*ns owner Dan
Snyder. We are already planning our next Twitter Storm during the
Oscars to protest the nomination of Lone Ranger for Redface makeup.
We won’t stop until students stop dressing up in Redface and
holding signs that say ‘Scalp ‘Em’ at the Rose Bowl and Snyder
finally does the right thing; #ChangetheName and realize we are
#NotYourMascot.