add Mankato to the list

[YaneA]

Sorry I can't find the link to the story from today's GF Herald--the new website is terrible!  If someone can add the link to this thread, I'd appreciate it.

A new-to-the-parade group at Mankato has plans to demonstrate against Indian nicknames

this weekend when the Sioux play basketball down there.  This article contains a new wrinkle--indicating the fine hand of

lawyers, methinks.  Now, the party line seems to be that human mascots, logos and nicknames are insulting only

if the name is not linked by heritage to the institution that uses it.  This carves out an exception for the beloved Fighting Irish of

Notre Dame apparently (as well as Indian schools with Indian nicknames), but still leaves the Fighting Sioux of UND, the Illini, the Seminoles, the Utes, et al., open to attack.

[ScottM]

I'm not sure how they define "heritage" but it sounds like a stretch to link "heritage" to a school.

[Riverman]

mankatofreepress.com/archives/2002/020216/story2.html

also check out Badjocks.com and the story about Archambault

a Sioux indian who plays for TexasAM-Corpus Christi(Islanders) and his problem with Bison fans from Lipscomb.

[dagies]

That is an unfortunate situation.  You can really feel for someone having to endure that kind of taunting, but I really wonder if he is right about it being the fault of mascots like the Redskins or the Indians.

I'm not a fan of the Redskins, frankly.  But I'm not sure that lots of other names like Seminoles, or Sioux, etc really contribute to this kind of behavior.  Ignorant people behave in this manner.   The nickname may provide a target for ignorant people, but that doesn't make the nickname bad.  Their behavior makes the ignorant people bad.

Rather than remove a nickname which will do nothing but hide the problem that ignorant people have I suggest it is much better to deal with the ignorant.  Changing the nickname is an easy and superficial attempt to solve the problem.  And it might make some feel like progress is being made when only it hides the real problem even further.

We need to deal with the  problem.

UND needs to step up even further to improve education and awareness of Native American culture.  I think in this way they will help make this a positive overall, and it would be the best way to combat those who say this is detrimental to the Sioux people.

[gjacks]

How can it be argued that there is no Native American heritage connected with the University of North Dakota?

 1) North Dakota is a Native American name - do we drop the Dakota and become the state "North"?

  2) North Dakota was carved out of the Dakota Territory, what used to be called "Indian Country", and is still referred to as such by various Native American jopurnalists such as Tim Giago ("Indian Country Today").

   3) History is shared by all members of a society, and I feel that Native American culture and history should be much as part of North Dakota consciousness as Norwegian, German, and Russian.  Not all of us are Scandanavian yet there is no protest over the use of "Vikings", not all of us are Greek but there is no protest over the use of "Spartans", and the list goes on.  The Sioux are a part of the heritage of this land and it is very presumptious for anyone to say that we have no right to embrace that heritage and that it will be denied to us.

On the other hand, I was very upset during the Minnesota hockey series at the way the name and mascot of the Gophers was treated in the pregame and the scene with a gopher on a stick that was shown several times during the weekend.  If we want others to respect our logo, name, and mascot, we need to do the same for them.  Has anyone heard of  "Logo Stomping"?  The REA did the equivalent to the University of Minnesota last weekend.