Upset Dartmouth Athletics Director Is On the Warpa — Wait, Bad Idea
Oh, Josie Harper. Your days as Dartmouth’s athletic director are normally filled with firing football coaches, forcing basketball coaches to resign, and dealing with the occasional renegade refrigerated mascot. But now you have a bigger problem to deal with — Indians!
The North Dakota men’s hockey team comes to campus in late December for a tournament. What’s the problem? UND’s mascot is the Fighing Sioux, a name that the NCAA and some Native American groups protest. Last week, Harper published this letter to the editor in The Dartmouth, apologizing for inviting North Dakota. (Funny, and we thought this was going to be the biggest Native American sensitivity controversy in Tuesday’s paper.) She says her staff has already met with the Native American Council and that she will soon be divulging a master plan on how her department can better respect Native Americans — which may include a policy against playing the 14 schools that still use “Indian” names or logos.
Does this mean Dartmouth won’t be playing the Cornell Big Red anymore?
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November 27th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
I came back from Thanksgiving break all happy, then looked at this layout agian, and now I’m in a bad mood.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Dude– [i]move on.[/i]
November 27th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Please excuse my poor HTML skillz demonstrated above– you get what I meant.
November 27th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Dartmouth’s women’s basketball team plays the Central Michigan Chippewas on December 18. Why is AD Josie Harper apologizing to the Sioux Indians without a peep about the Chippewas?
I say it’s time that somebody stood up for the Chippewas.
November 27th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
This is ridiculous. It’s one thing when racism happens on our own campus, the anger there I can understand. But now we have to apologize for what OTHER schools do?
Just because someone is an ethnic minority doesn’t mean they’re not a stubborn, hypersensitive jerk.
November 27th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
The political correctness on that New Hampshire campus is just ridiculous. I feel for the D-mouth cons, although not those fools that still think we should be in Iraq. What’s wrong with a Fighting Sioux mascot anyways? If anything, it is a glorification of the fighting prowess of the historical Sioux people. You don’t name your team after something you’re making fun of. And if Keggy weren’t so adorable I would want to see D-mouth reinstate its historical mascot.
November 28th, 2006 at 1:17 am
No wonder retards go to yale, it’s a complete and utter insult to native americans to portray them as savages and uncivilized warriors bent on fighting and destruction! You idiot…
November 28th, 2006 at 1:28 am
Since you’re all into political correctness, isn’t “American Indian” the preferred term nowadays? Perhaps those in glass houses shouldn’t throw giant fucking boulders, eh “retard?”
November 28th, 2006 at 9:01 am
As a semi-recent Dartmouth grad, it really saddens me that Herr Wright and the adminstration keeps the campus in this rut. The most offensive event that I ever saw on campus was the school sponsored Pow-Wow promoting a bastardized, homogenized, “dreamcatcher on the rear view mirror” form of “Native Americanism”.
November 28th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I think the perfect way to resolve this continual problem of political correctness in Hanover is by making it a crime punishable by death for anyone of non-native blood to even think about native peoples.
November 29th, 2006 at 3:12 am
this response comes late since dartmouth is currently undergoing finals, but i’d like to state that you have to consider the whole history of Dartmouth and its relationship to Native Americans. Although I’m unsure of my position in regards to allowing other teams who use Native Americans as MASCOTS (there’s a reason why I capitalize) to compete on campus, I firmly back them in how they are trying to promote their cause.
First of all, I disagree with using Native American ethnic groups as mascots or symbols of anything. One poster stated that, “If anything, it is a glorification of the fighting prowess of the historical Sioux people. You don’t name your team after something you’re making fun of.”
The problem with this is that there is a history of oppression associated with Native Americans. It’s not the equivalent of say using a Quaker or the Irish only because Native Americans are still marginalized within this country and that comes as a consequence of America’s treatment and policies towards Native Americans.
It’s oxymoronic symbolism – you may well try to “glorify” the Native American as the Fighting Sioux, but really… Do you want to glorify the Recalcitrant Slave? Or the Heroic Jew?
The fact is, the little that marginalized groups have within this country is their identity. They are not in equal position within society, and I’ll be damned if someone quotes a law to me that says contrary. When people use images and people and history that they do not understand and coopts it for their own purpose without regarding how the other group reacts… You are basically stripping them of their power as a community, as an individual.
I really find it amazing that we are implying that “they shouldn’t be offended”. How dare anyone say that a person who is within a marginalized group call them hypersensitive in regards to how OTHERS outside of the community attempt to portray them?
Look at the black community. Images of the sambo, the pickananny, coons, etc etc etc. People used to say “it’s just a joke”- don’t take it too seriously. Caricatures really that don’t represent African-Americans; and in the case of blackface/coon-like imagery, it was used as commentary against capitalism. Riiiggghhhttt… So we ignore the historical evolution of these images? The emotional pain attached to these images? Although they did not occur within our generation, it very much resonates still within the African-American community.
Why?
Because they are still marginalized within society. And all of those images, the Native American mascots included, remind them of this reality and the history out of which it has evolved.
If anyone disagrees on whether or not African-Americans or Native-Americans are still marginalized, look up statistics and where these groups live. Bringing up Affirmative Action (and believe me, I’m actually not a proponent of it— I believe in socio-economic Affirmative Action) won’t wipe out the reality.
That is all. I know it’s not capitalized, perfect grammar, but it’s 3:14AM and I could care less.
November 29th, 2006 at 5:09 am
I’m Blackfoot; and let me say that I fully endorse the Indian mascot, even the current Review cover. To see these unctuous, east-coast liberals work themselves up in a self-righteous lather is hilarious. The Indian is a symbol of pride for my alma mater that I will wear to my dying day, the lugubrious bellyaching of liberal diaper-babies, notwishstanding.
Powerful words like ‘racism’ and ‘hatred’ are deployed at every turn to modify the merely crass, tasteless, or offensive. Is it any surprise that they concommitantly lose their power? It’s almost risible; but I’m sick of it.
Why don’t these Natives go do something worthwhile with their time. There are certainly more pressing issues. You know, real afflictions–like alcoholism, poverty, and educational maladies that American Indians are disproportionately suffering from.
Morons. Instead they expend their capital bloviating over mascots that no one honestly thinks are being used to intentionally disparage and defame minorities. Do people honestly think Ivy League campus are just riddled with closeted klansmen just chompin’ at the bit to deprive us of every God-given right and lynch us. Puhleeeze.
I’m hungry, lol; and besides, the dollar is at its lowest level in 15 years. Get on with your lives.
Wah-hoo-Wah
November 29th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
How white man! Trade beaver pelt for fire water?
November 29th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Recalcritrant Slave? Heroic Jew? I think those would make awesome mascots personally. I would trade our stupid good-for-nothing-but-aphrodisiac-tea tiger any day.
May 27th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I am against using races as mascots but I can’t stand the stench of wimpy academics!
How about them Redskins?
Their billionaire owner just commissioned a study (possibly by a group related to an ivy league college) which conclusively demonstrated that the name didn’t offend anybody.
Of course, no liberals go to ’skin games.
January 9th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
yes we the people (native americans) have the right to say you can not use our sioux name and logo in that manner. You will sometime in a year or 2 you will no longer have that nickname or logo you people should of stayed with Flickertails in the first place.