Essay On Native American Stereotypes

Words: 1010
Pages: 5

For decades we’ve known the Native Americans to be a race that has lost a lot especially their home land being taken over by force from the white settlers. From that, Native Americans are rarely ever seen around in modern day life, only traditions exist among certain states across the US. And so, we see many of these traditions especially in sports ranging from football mascots to school names. For example, one of the most well-known NFL football teams are named the Washington Reskins which in past events has caused numerous turmoil to occur over the years due to the teams name and mascot since those of Native American decent presumed the team had no motive or cared about the reason for their name. So, commencing onward to the famous debate …show more content…
Yet, arguments arise from the redskins mascot due to the supposedly “Native American stereotypes” that most Native Americans find to be offensive rather than something positive. Countless of these arguments are somewhat convincing in trying to aid the positive stereotype of Native Americans with the Redskins mascot rather than the negative stereo types. Positive stereotypes are presumptions that portray a specific groups positive characteristics. For example the sole purpose of the Mascot is to show the positive stereo types of Native Americans, being that they were brave, have fighting spirit, pride and perseverance where as some may think the team portrays the negative stereo types of Native Americans being aggressive, blood thirsty savages(King, Staurowsky, Baca, Davis, and Pewewardy). Positive stereotypes do tend to be less harmful then negative stereotypes since they do set the precedence of the Native American race as a proud athletic type. We see positive stereo also in African Americans, where majority of the NFL is African American male dominated due to the biological factor of black men having thicker bones, bigger muscles and substantial amount of