Native American Mascots Research Paper

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Pages: 5

Negative Impacts of Native American Imagery in Sports The use of Native American mascots and logos affects the everyday lives of Native American people. The use of stereotypes and offensive cultural representations within mascots and sports team logos has been a controversial topic for many decades revolving around the topic of whether a logo or mascot is offensive to Native American culture, or whether it honours Native American people across the world. Many people believe that the use of cultural logos and mascots honours the Native American culture, yet many Native American people believe that this is very unethical and stereotypical behaviour. The controversial logo of the Washington Redskins is extremely unethical due to the dehumanization of Native Americans, the derogatory use of the word …show more content…
The repeated stereotypical use of the long time “Native American” mascot has had a major negative impact on Native American people, “these mascots are teaching stereotypical, misleading and too often, insulting images of American Indians. These negative lessons are not just affecting American Indian students; they are sending the wrong message to all students (“American Indian Mascots”). The use of Native American imagery, mascots, and terminology continues to disrupt the lives of American Indian people because they are being seen daily as an object and stereotyped representation of their culture. This has affected Native American people because they cannot safely express their culture or identity without being referred back to a stereotypical representation of themselves. Along with this, young people of other cultures are now only being exposed to one representation of a Native American, which has now made them casually see American Indian people as only a