Donald W. Albertson
St. Cloud State University

I have recently taken a human relations class at St. Cloud State University. In this class, we have discussed how the status quo of our government and other institutions have been glorified and have manipulated the people of this country.

One particular area of concern is the problem of stereotypes placed on Native Americans by the use of mascots. In this letter, I will briefly explain to you how stereotypes of Native Americans, through mascots, create problems in our schools, in non-Indian people's views of Indians, and why we need the NCAA as well as other institutions such as high schools and professional sports teams to ban these mascots altogether.

Mascots create poor attitudes among Indian students. They have the highest dropout rates, highest suicide rates, and a lack of motivation that can be traced in great part to the feelings of disgrace and humiliation that Indians suffer from their continual confrontations with negative stereotypical thinking about them from non-Indian students. This phenomenon is not unrelated to the mascots and nicknames put on them.

Stereotypical views of Native Americans have been placed on them since we can remember. Indians have been looked at as being wild savages who scalp white people. That kind of attitude is exploited throughout most of our history books in our schools.

It's about time our children, as well as most adults, learn the truth behind our stereotypes.

I believe that Christopher Columbus didn't discover America. How could he discover something that was already civilized? The Pilgrims didn't have a Thanksgiving feast to celebrate the blessings of a good harvest. They celebrated because they had battled a bloody war to obtain lands from the Indian peoples who had lived there for countless centuries before that time. That is why Indian people are portrayed the way they are: because they opposed white settlers taking their sacred lands. If your home was being taken from you, wouldn't you put up a fight to keep it?

A seasonal insult is witnessed every year as fans of Indian mascots take to the fields to cheer on their teams. Indians, Chiefs, Redskins, Warriors, and even Savages are just some of the degrading nicknames used to root on teams. When was the last time you picked up the sports section of any paper and saw that the Kansas City Coons defeated the Syracuse Spicks or that the New Jersey Jews upset the Chicago Chinks?

That is the kind of humiliation Native Americans live with every day.

Is it that hard to change your school or professional team's mascot to an animal or any number of nonhuman creatures and things? Native Americans are human beings just as much, if not more, than we are. They have their own cultural values, so why do we still encourage these mascots?

As of today, there are no specific laws prohibiting the use of Native American mascots. This issue affects everyone. I see no reason why there should not be laws made to remove these mascots altogether.