Native Americans Should Not be Used as Logos/Mascots in Sports

The Native American culture was once a proud culture that learned the ins and outs on how to live and how to go about doing things the nature way. They lived in the Americas before anybody on the Eastern side of the World knew this place existed. When the English settlers and the Europeans decided to explore what else was out in the World, it was the Natives that took care of them, fed them, and showed them simple things like how to hunt for food and live out in the wild. Hundreds of years later, the Native American culture hardly exists here in America as less than two million Indians live here (U.S. Census Bureau).

There are not many reservations that are around, and more and more of different races seem to find their way to America (Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, etc). The one thing that has kept the Native American tribes alive is the one thing that is tarnishing it the most, and that is using their Native language and culture and symbolizing it as if it was a humorous subject, a cartoon somewhat. So many names, faces, and items that the Natives are made of have been placed on a school or a team as their personalized team name, their logo, or even their mascot. I do not see this as celebrating a once proud culture, but hurting it, poking fun at it, as if the Natives are some kind of animal. Native Americans are being treated like animals, used on a platform that no other culture has felt. How? "These names and images have a damaging effect on Native Americans because it freezes us in our past, it distils our humanity to a one-dimensional term" said Joseph Gone (Plaschke, 1).

What this sentence is stating is that the Native Americans in our country are being poked at for fun in sports, games, etc. Their heritage is being placed on the line, being put on a basketball jersey or a football helmet, and nobody is taking time to notice how wrong this is. Native Americans took care of this land and helped the Europeans through the beginning of their time here, and we repay them by tarnishing their heritage, making a mockery of it, putting the face of an Indian on the side of a helmet or in front of a jersey, and that isn’t right.