Re: Should UND fans wearing Fighting Sioux gear be denied admission to NCAA arenas?
And if 75 years ago UND had created an endowment fund and it had been used for a couple of generations to try to right some of the wrongs done to these people and if they'd funded higher education for EVERY Native American in the state ... then the name would have stayed. You see how that game works now?
Couple of things. First, UND has a very strong track record in programs designed to benefit Native Americans. At least they did 25 years ago.
But more to your point, if the name was harmful, I'm not sure UND should be able to buy permission to use it. I think it was time for the name to go, but in that respect the NCAA's rationale was flawed. Once you determine that the dominant culture's use of a name (or some other act) causes harm to a historically discriminated group, it is flawed thinking to permit that group to acquiesce to that abuse by vote. After
Brown, this country would not have permitted laws that require black people to ride in the back of the bus because black people accepted that treatment by vote. Acquiescence is one of the harmful side effects of a history of abuse. It causes anger to build, as we saw in the 60s, but it also causes acquiescence. If you truly believe someone is being abused, you do not allow them to simply agree to it. At least in my opinion.
Now, if the NCAA had addressed the issue as a property right or contract issue--that the name belonged to the tribes and that the right to use it was something the tribes could agree to sell or give away, that would be a different matter. But the NCAA basically said the name is abusive but we will let the Native Americans agree to that abuse.
Allowing the Native Americans to vote on the issue is flawed for another reason more directly related to Native American tribal politics. Most reservations I know have extremely "tribal" politics, no pun intended. Groups, sometimes family, come into and out of power on reservations, and policies tend to be very fickle. So the determination whether the use of the name is harmful is a moving target.
I'm not saying it is strictly up to white people to decide for Native Americans whether UND's use of the name is harmful and offensive. I think the use of the name is probably highly offensive to some or many Natives and possibly harmful. But if you are going to try to figure out whether that is true, you start by involving Native Americans from the beginning in determining whether the use of the name in this manner and in these times is harmful to them. And since it is the name that identifies who they are, you take that input seriously.
It may sound like approaching it that way is no different in the end--a distinction without a difference. But I don't think so. A small group of white people just should not be able to make a finding that use of the name is harmful on one hand then permit the victim to accept that harm on the other hand. That's arrogance first and Pontius Pilate second.
Sigh. Didn't intend to ramble like this when I started this post, and it will get ripped by some, as it probably should. But it was time to let go. The University will be just fine. The hockey team will be just fine. We hockey fans who have considered ourselves "Sioux" fans all our lives will be just fine. And the gophers will always suck.
