1988 [of Native-themed mascots and symbols] “The problem is deadly serious. These names serve to diminish an entire people.” – Suzan Harjo

What's in a nickname? 

Lots, say American Indians

1988 Aug 20 Pensacola News Journal 

SUZAN HARJO

• “The problem is deadly serious. These names serve to diminish an entire people.” – Suzan Harjo, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians. 
  
•  “The educated white man of the 16th century engaged in a philosophical argument about whether Indians were really human beings,” Harjo says. “I thought the issue had been decided long ago. But it appears some still think we are not exactly people.”
  
• When asked if a school couldn’t be called the Indians, how can a pro football team be the Minnesota Vikings, Harjo responded: “They no longer sail in their longships or worship Odin. But Indians do still wear the same dress and have the same beliefs. To use our tribal dress and sacred rites at football games is to say that our way of life, like the Vikings’, is gone. It’s as though we have only a past – no present and no future.” 

OREN LYONS

• “Racism is still racism, even when it is institutionalized.” – Oren Lyons, Onondaga, professor of American history at the University of Buffalo. 

PHIL ST. JOHN

• “There was a white student dressed as an Indian warrior with a fringe vest and painted face,” said Phil St. John, Sioux, recalling a high school basketball game he and his eight-year-old son attended last year. “My son looked away in shame. I knew I had to do something.” St. John then founded a local group called Concerned American Indian Parents who lobbied Minneapolis’ Southwest High School to change its nicknames. Three months later Southwest’s Indians metamorphosed into Lakers. 

1988 Aug 20 Pensacola News Journal