Yesterday, Savage Media released a video of a poem by Preston Wells ’15 titled “If the Indian Mascot Could Speak.” The video invoked a sense of anger that I had never been able to express.
I often find myself thinking about the time before I came to college. I grew up in Pine Ridge, S.D., a small Lakota community that both takes care of and neglects its own. Pine Ridge is a community that has Indian mascots in high schools and middle schools. Before coming to Dartmouth, I did not see the mascot as a big deal; I never gave it any thought. If someone had told me that the mascot was “honoring me,” I probably would have believed it. I didn’t know of any predominantly white schools with Indian mascots, and I had never seen red face in my life. At home, Lakota boys would pray and put on war paint before sporting events as if they were going into battle.
My first term at Dartmouth in the fall of 2010 changed my thoughts on the Indian mascot. Loud music and girls in skimpy costumes filled fraternity row, just like any other Halloween night on a college campus. It was my first time stepping into a fraternity, and I was excited and nervous, only planning to have fun. In the first basement I stepped into, I saw a white man standing next to a pong table. He wore a fake headdress, or “war bonnet,” as we call it. I couldn’t help but be angry. My new home and community had put an image in front of me that I didn’t know how to respond to, so I left the fraternity with my friends to avoid the scene. As we made our way to another part of campus, a white girl in a skimpy Indian costume walked toward us. “Oh hell no!” were the first words that came to mind. This time, I could not control my rage. I screamed at her, “What do you know about being Native?”
Why was I so angry? Because she didn’t know. She had no idea know what it’s like to grow up Lakota on a reservation where every day can be a struggle to survive. She didn’t know what it’s like to grow up in a community plagued by alcoholism, domestic violence, poverty or rape the way Pine Ridge is. I then realized that I wanted people to know that their Halloween costumes offended me. Their Indian mascots offended me. Even their fake Native jewelry and moccasins offended me. That night was a turning point for me.
I’ve scoured articles for the words to describe why the Indian mascot offended both my personal and political sensibilities. After my research and talking with Wells about his poem, I’ve realized that fighting the Indian mascot is a privileged fight, a battle that Natives fight when they are privileged enough to experience life away from their homelands. In these environments, the Indian mascot is often the predominant representation of Native people. If I had gone to a school closer to home, I would not be writing this reflection; I likely would still feel indifferent toward the mascot. If I hadn’t gone to Dartmouth, I may have been able to focus more on the poverty and domestic violence that haunt my community.
Instead, I am in an environment where many of my peers lack the basic knowledge of who my people are. Whereas I didn’t know how to react to their blatant racism, they didn’t know how to respond to my existence. Something happened inside of me when I saw that white girl in an Indian costume, trying to be something she knew nothing about. It was the same anger that rose in me when I first heard “If the Indian Mascot Could Speak.” While many will say that the poverty and health issues facing Indian country are much more important, the anger I felt that night tells me that the Indian mascot battle is one worth fighting.
I don’t want to argue the political correctness of the mascot. I want to put into words how it made me feel. What did it do to my self-esteem, my pride and honor? I want to figure out what psychological affects Indian mascots have on Native American youth. I think about my nieces — one 13-year-old and a pair of 8-year-old twins. They are young, beautiful Lakota girls, little girls who once said, “I am not Indian, I am Lakota.” I think about what would happen if they saw that white girl the way I did, if they saw that man standing in a headdress in the basement of a frat, surrounded by alcohol.
Would they feel honored?
And what part of that experience would make them feel proud? When the owners of these Indian mascots say that they are honoring us, what part of us are they honoring? Because when I look in the mirror, I don’t see a man, brown skin, tomahawk and headdress. I see a girl far removed from her homeland, in modern-day clothes, with light skin and glasses. Do they honor the part that is gone? The brown skin that I’ll never have, the land that they took from us or the buckskin dress that I will never wear because they wear it for me?
They do not honor me. They honor themselves for doing such a good job killing all the Indians. And to them, that’s just what we are — Indians, not Ojibwe, not Lakota — despite what my 8-year-old nieces might think.
White Eyes '14is a co-founder of Savage Media.
