How about these activists respect our first amendment right to honor our past?
Ah yes, the old "it is our tradition" argument.
Tate Walker put it best way back in 2015 when she responded...
"Whose tradition?
The traditions of my Lakota people go back to time immemorial, passed down generation to generation for survival and progress. Your mascot is 100 years old.
Things change. And retiring racist mascots would be a change for the better.
Let’s look at the time in history these Indian mascots were launched. For many, we’re talking the early 1900s, a time following the end of the Indian wars, particularly those nations of the Great Plains, the last holdouts of the United States’ efforts to colonize the Wild West.
This was a time when many considered Native Americans “the vanishing race.” Being Indian was en vogue, tribal artifacts swept up at auction, nostalgic photographs taken of Indians before they died out, and items were created and marketed with Indian images and characters.
We were memorialized and mythologized, even as we struggled to survive under the new conditions of reservation life.
So it makes sense that the images chosen for school and sports mascots during this time depicted noble, stoic savages of the past.
The real “tradition” mascots honor and uphold is the idea of a passive, silent, defeated, and nonexistent Indian.
This makes it difficult for people to validate us today.
Being loud at protests, on news shows, and on social media — demanding change — subverts the systems of oppression and changes the dynamic of that noble, stoic Indian America has grown accustomed to.
I propose this is the tradition we should be honoring – that of a Native American who is active and vocal in ways that will promote progress."
Her well researched and thought out article can be found here...
https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/argue-against-racist-mascots/
I encourage you to read it, and am hopeful that you consider it.
