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Ten little Indians...
NDN MASCOTS AND BOBBLEHEADS
This is based on a
true story. No jokes!
Just when I thought I received my last hate mail for being somewhat
supportive of Indian, Native American ,Ndn, Born in the USA politically
disfunctional representational images of Native- First Nations Peoples
in Sports or Hollywood, and aninated or non-animated cartoons and /or
both international non-correct images transmitted through internet
or may I add, being beamed to every distant existing galaxy -
ALONG COME THE REINTRODUCTION OF BOBBLEHEADS!
MLB .COM- NFL .COM- NBA.COM
As a young "relocated rez boy" growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960's
-1970'sI grew into a LA Dodgers baseball fan. I remember seing LA
Dodgers baseball doll heads bobbling in the backs of people's cars with
big wide bucky toothed grins! " A LA Dodgers fan in that car", I
thought to myself. Oh,oh, a NY Yankees fan over in the other car
with his bobblehead smiling at the rest of the LA folks on the 405
freeway. My parents and the Yankee fan are saying some nice unprintable
words to each other while the bobbleheads are smiling and bobbling this
way and that way. I wonder what the bobbleheads are thinking?
Examine the evidence and you be the self-righteous judge of what is
simply humor or racism and what Native American Activists are teaching
and lecturing and maybe, preaching to children as being the root cause
of racism and genocide against Native Peoples.
Cleveland Indian Chief Wahoo - USA Major League Baseball mascot not to
be mistaken with "Indian motorcycle" or Indiana State, or "Make a money
wish" car air freshener Indian or children playing cowboys and Indians,
has been singled out for being the "Red Sambo" or "red nigger" by Native
American support groups who are non-Indian for the most part.
Aside from this issue posed here : What do we do about Indians who are
mixed blood with some other ethnic race such as French, Irish, Scottish,
Asian or African etc.? An Indian with black blood would have the
first right to dislike being called a "red nigger!" But, among friends
there is a sense of ironic respect given if the tone of the name is
meant to be a sign of respect. I have been called "Chief" so often in my
world travels that I think it is my name sometimes. Most people mean for
the name Chief to be a sign of respect and this is the first image
of a name that comes to people's mind.
As a young teenager and young man I was in more physical confrontations
, drag-down-kick-bite-scratch fights because someone called me Chief and
I was offended. I think I even scalped a few guys during my Eurasian
tours. Just kidding. After emptying rooms and sitting alone most of the
time over this silliness, I began accepting that most peoples'
intentions were in the right place and they meant no INTENTIONAL harm by
calling me Chief, Indian, redskin or redman, or even Geronimo.
It is a truism that sports teams' names may offend over-sensitive
wannabe politically correct Indians and non-Indians. Even using the term
"I-n-d-i-a-n" causes some mixed up Indigenous Peoples great confusion.
Who am I? Some psychologists are being overpaid to help us poor
Native-First-Nations-Real-People-Human-Beings-We-Were-Here-First-Damn-It-Good-Guys
find that our Identity is with us and not those who are trying to define
who we are. I wish I was getting paid for this job. |
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