1985 "I don't know what their idea of honoring us is, because that just keeps alive the myth of what we are. "

Fight over nickname heats up again

by Matthew Burglund

1985, June 18. Indiana Gazette 

      Every few years - when it seems the calm has set in - the war erputs again.

      Armies enlist new recruits. Plans of attack are charted. Battle lines are drawn.

     All because of a nickname.

      The seemingly endless battle over just what the Indiana University of Pennsylvania athletic teams should be called has begun again, fueled by charges of ignorance, greed and disrespect. And it seems it's a war that might never end.

      The latest installment finds the school's student body preparing to vote on a new nickname later this month to potentially replace "Indians," which the university's teams have been called since the late 1920s, when the Indiana Evening Gazette began referring to them that way.

      ... "This has to change at some point," said Laura Cramer, president of Student Congress and head of the Nickname Renaming Committee. "I think it's really time for a change."

      Those were the same sentiments years ago as colleges and high schools across the country began questioning the ethics of nicknames such as "Redskins," "Braves," and "Indians," which were largely based on a perception of American Indians as fierce warriors.

      A movement began to rid the athletic arena of nicknames that were racially insensitive to American Indians, the people who inhabited this land before the Europeans came only to lose their homes and identity in the following centuries.

       But as some schools changed their nicknames, another group of dedicated souls began to voice their opinions. They are the alumni, the men and women who graduated in years gone by, who identify a specific period of their lives with a school and it's nickname.... 

      Some claim the name serves not as a slur against indigenous people but as a way to honor them -- to keep alive their history and heritage.

      But for American Indian activist groups, that view means little. Gary Brouse, director of equality issues for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility in New York City, said what often is perceived as the life of an American Indian is usually just an outsider's account.

     According to Brouse, calling athletic teams "Indians" or the like does not honor those people but, in fact, keeps alive the perception of American Indians in loin cloths, covered in war paint, tomahawk in hand, ready to scalp their enemies, regardless of whether a mascot is dressed that way on the sidelines.

      "It perpetuates their image of Indians," said Brouse, who is a member of the Ponca tribe. "I don't know what their idea of honoring us is, because that just keeps alive the myth of what we are. It's not about logos or mascots. It's about who will define who and what we are. We think we should be the ones to do that, but as long as these nicknames and mascots exist, other people will do it for us."        

1985, June 18. Indiana Gazette