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By Scotty Seal, Student Editor, UW-Manty News Staff

**__THE ONE IN CLEVELAND__** //By Scotty Seal, Student Editor//

For decades images of Native American and their culture have been used to sell everything from baking powder to sports teams. Mascots and logos from the grade school to professional level in all sports sell and the brand associated with said images. The Washington Redskins of the NFL, for example, use the name associated with the graphic butchering of Indians many years ago,//redskin//. (More on this later) I have heard these controversies but never really paid attention to them and didn’t process the harm they do to Native Americans. I remember when the Marquette Warriors changed their name to the Golden Eagles, but that is as far as I recognized the problem.

Misuse and misrepresentation of the Native American doesn’t personally affect me so I wrote the issue off like global warming. Why should violations against another race affect me? I’m not a Native American. Why would the racist views against African-Americans, Mexicans, Hmong, and any other ethnic group cause me to feel any emotion or suffering? I’m not racist, so I’m not guilty of anything. Right? Well…I have learned I am guilty of something: ignorance.

I wrote a story on Richie Plass, a Menominee/Stockbridge-Munsee from northern Wisconsin, who is a published poet, actor, educator, activist, and musician who was coming to our campus to display an exhibit called Bittersweet Winds, and to discuss his position on the use of Native American images.That is all I did, write the story. I didn’t take to heart what I was writing because my job was to share the facts without any bias and I left it at that. Being a sports fanatic I know of more team names such as the Florida State Seminoles, Kansas City Chiefs, Chicago Blackhawks, Atlanta Braves, and most important to me---the Cleveland Indians, my favorite baseball team. They were just names to me, why should it bother me? Then… Richie Plass entered my life. Ironically, on the day Richie came to our campus I was to help him unload his trailer and I wore a Cleveland Indians t-shirt. One of my professors asked if I was actually going to wear that to help him and immediately a sheepish look crossed my face due to my own foolish mistake. I didn’t know what Richie was like and had no idea whether he would be offended or angry so I acquired another shirt to wear over mine.

After his exhibit was set up, I found myself in the County Board Room for nearly two hours looking at images of how Native Americans are displayed in America, and reading stories of the same. I was overwhelmed with a feeling I couldn’t quite describe, and left the exhibit knowing I would be back. I really looked at these images with an open mind, and when I say __looked__ I mean __absorbed__.

I have a skin on my laptop and it’s the Cleveland Indian logo of Chief Wahoo, the bright red face fully capturing every stereotype from the red skin to the feathers and the big honking nose. In an ironic and serendipitous coincidence it seemed to me Richie had more Cleveland items at this exhibit than any other. I was quietly embarrassed and a little ashamed of myself. How could I have lived this long and not recognized the blatant misuse of the Native American image? The realization slapped me in the face, so I sought out Richie to learn more.

I felt irritated with myself for not being aware of this insult to another race and needed more info. I talked with Richie for an hour. I left feeling educated and honored to have had a conversation with such a passionate and sincere human being. His comments, wisdom, thoughts, and knowledge below appear in //italics.//

I started by explaining to him that my favorite team since I was little has been the Cleveland Indians and that I had hats, shirts, and other merchandise. I then told him about the shirt I had worn on the day I was to help unload his van and he actually roared with laughter at my panic.

//Cool//. //My favorite movie is ‘Major League.//’ (This is a comedic movie from the early 90’s about the Cleveland Indians baseball team) “What is most offensive to you about these mascots and logos?”

//There are two things that bother me the most, first of all, that face, that picture of Chief Wahoo is a cartoon character. I am not a cartoon character; neither is my grandfather nor my kids. We are living people. We are Indians and nobody that I know of got a hold of my grandparents or me to get the approval to use the name __Indians__. This is America and I know it’s free enterprise, but there was a bar in Appleton that opened up 20 years ago named Grumpy’s. Their symbol was from ‘The Seven Dwarfs’, Disney filed suit against them, copyright infringement. We have been trying to file that kind of suit against Cleveland and we can’t because that’s a cartoon character, that’s not us. The cartoon character of Grumpy is a copyrighted image, to which I’m saying it’s a fictional image. People come and talk to me about the __Fighting Irish__ of Notre Dame, the leprechaun, asking what I think of it. I say I don’t think of it I’m not Irish. But, next week if you’re going to bring in the Irish people and you’re going to have a little leprechaun in here speaking, let me know, I have some questions I want to ask him. Some people say that’s too politically correct and you’re putting it down to that degree. I say well then, quit playing Indian, you’re not an Indian. You’re putting on these awful head dresses, painting your face, and wearing plastic feathers. I don’t see Jewish people wearing stuff like the pope, and parading St. Patrick’s Day to honor the Catholics. And for sure I don’t see the KKK dressing up like Obama and parading on the fourth of July, but people do it to us all the time.//

//Now the second thing that bothers me is there are people making money off that. Tons and tons of money. People keep saying, “were paying you honor.” No you’re not. I personalize it. I’m not speaking for my tribe; I’m not speaking for every Indian, because I was a mascot. There is no honor in being laughed at, having food thrown on you, or being spit on. That thing standing by the doorway [referring to an 8 foot stuffed, cartoonish, and hideous image of what someone calls an Indian], is still used today in America ,for high schools and colleges as a school mascot. Somebody runs out with that and I’m supposed to feel honored, and I’m not. So, I tell people like yourself, “You go ahead and do it. That’s your choice. But you have asked me my opinion and I gave you my opinion.” That is how I was raised, how I live, and that’s how I will continue to be. Because I say again, prove it to me, somebody please prove to me [that this is honorable, because] you’re not doing it to the Jewish people, Mexicans, and the Hmong. People come back to me and say the Indians were strong leaders, they were brave warriors, they did this and that. An old Indian man came up to me after a presentation and said, “You got good words and I liked your exhibit, but you know what’s really funny about all this? According to their books we got our asses kicked for 500 years, and they’re paying us honor? It don’t make sense.”// Do you find any of the symbols and logos representatives at all of the Indian?

//No. I’ll give you a rundown why. For instance, let’s start with the Marquette Warriors. A relative of mine was the dude, the mascot, and during his senior year he got called in by the powers that be who had a problem with him. They said he wasn’t being Indian enough.//

What does that mean? //Exactly. They wanted more of a Hollywood show type--jump around, hoot and holler. Kind of like Chief Illiniwek from Illinois, and again the person who depicted that dude never was an Indian; it was always a white guy. Let’s go to the Seminoles. The US government trying to what they did even to the Seminoles, they killed Chief Osceola and beheaded him, then put his head on a stick and paraded it around the US for the next year and a half. The Seminole symbol “honoring” him is on the side of the helmet, but the government had his head on a stick.//

//Let’s take the feather. Eagle feathers are one of the most sacred items we have for prayer. We are taught that when we are small. My Menominee name comes from the eagle. So I say to people like from the Catholic school, St Paul’s or whatever, how come on their helmets they don’t have a picture of the Virgin Mary. When you go to a Catholic church they talk about the bread and wine, but when I go into any liquor store in America I don’t find any wine decanter with a picture of the Mary or Jesus on it. Can’t do that, but you can do it to us.//

As he went on I learned that scalping started with the French, British, and the Dutch. There were rewards for bringing in scalps and sometimes they wouldn’t even kill the people. The Indian would be left to lie in his/her red skin. That isn’t referring to the color of his skin, but from the blood running down their bodies from the scalping. Men would come in with the bounties saying, “I left him to die in his red skin.”

//Redskin is a racial slur. But there is a man that owns that team who is making money off of it. Why is it we don’t tolerate a lot of stuff, but all the Indian usage is not only tolerated, and perpetuated, but it is supported by whole towns, by people that aren’t even us. Yet they tell you, “We’re honoring you. You want to honor us, do what you are doing, sit down and talk to us.”//

//Take for example the Mishicot Indians, what does that mean? Do they have a tribal ID? I asked a teacher if they have a class on the Potawatomi Indian culture and family because they are promoting it. Of course they don’t.//

Do you hold white people accountable for not trying to change the symbols and misrepresentations because they feel pressure to leave things the way they are?

//I’m gonna respond this way: I don’t hold white people accountable for nothing because I could bring in five Indians who don’t agree with me. They like the names. I don’t take it away from them. But then I ask them why and they give me their reasons, and they are pretty tough reasons sometimes.//

“Can I have an example?”

//First example I call the MTV syndrome. I take an urban setting and look at the history of America, like our grandparents, aunts and uncles, and parents who left the reservation because there is nothing there. They moved to the city to get jobs, have a better life, and then their families are raised there. Once they move to those cities, they no longer go to ceremonies, practice our culture, and lose the language. The kids coming up wear these symbols because it’s the only way they can identify with being an Indian and I can understand that because they are proud to be an Indian and that’s what they are showing.//

//The second is the toughest for me because now we have kids on reservations doing that, and the problem there is a generation or two back from me, the people I grew up with, their kids are doing this. They come from a family which might be one parent, dysfunctional, or disrupted family, but the biggest thing is their family don’t live that way either. They don’t go to pow wows, ceremonies, and they don’t care about the language, history, or the culture. They just want their job..//

//No, I don’t hold it against the white people. I don’t do that. What I have a problem with is all of a sudden they grab on to this thought process and try to take ownership, and claim to be the Mishicot Indians or the Manitowoc Chiefs. They claim that and put it to a point saying this is how it is, and it’s not. I asked a young guy here yesterday. ‘What is a Chief?’ He couldn’t answer it because he gets it from your history books. You don’t know from our perspective what a chief is. You don’t know traditionally the responsibility of a chief and you’re parading around with an awful cartoon character with a football. That isn’t paying anyone honor. It’s making fun of us. Every chief doesn’t wear a headdress or war paint—it depends on where you’re from.// What is a chief?

Richie chuckles at my question. //A chief accepts responsibility for ensuring the growth, safety, survival, and everything to do with his people, young or old. He earned this title from providing for his family, learning to hunt, taking care of the community. He proved himself through actions and isn’t voted in. it is an understanding and selection by his people. He is not a cartoon or an arrowhead on a helmet.//

If I had worn my Indians shirt what would you have said? “//How can you wear that? I’d like to know,” I would have asked. I wouldn’t have been upset. Cleveland is making progress with us though, no longer will you see Chief Wahoo at the games and the hats now have a simple ‘I’ embroidered on them.//

I told Richie about the skin on my laptop and since my talk with him have ordered a new skin. I understand his point(s) and am moved by what I learned. It may take me a little while to break old habits, but I am not one to preach to others what to do. Richie doesn’t preach or push his beliefs on anyone. He simply educates and expresses his beliefs, creating an awareness that isn’t in your face, but simply just there. I am better off for having my time with him and now when people ask me who my favorite baseball team is, my answer will be, “the one in Cleveland .”

__It Ain’t That Serious__ I woke up in a good mood this morning to another warm and beautiful day. I set an alarm for seven each morning but usually don’t make it that long because I have another alarm clock in the form of my eleven month old son, Daxton. He was on a pretty good streak of demanding my attention at 5:30 AM for about two weeks. I can’t argue with him when all I see is this big baby smile when I walk into his room. So we are both are up, me with a coffee, and him with a bottle. Daxton watches the Sprout channel while I usually go through my fantasy sports teams, e-mail, and Facebook. This has become our routine at the first sign of daylight this past fall.

We eventually end up in the kitchen sharing breakfast while he babbles the baby talk only he understands. It’s a good time and the best part of my day. But on this day a crabby mama emerged from the bedroom and changed the mood of the breakfast area. She was unusually upset and it may have been from being tired or sore, it didn’t matter, she was not coming out of this mood. There was nothing Daxton and I could say to turn her frown upside down. I became irritated, and being upset that our peaceful morning was disturbed, words were exchanged and followed by arguing. She left for work and me for school after I dropped Daxton off at daycare.

She and I had been happy with how much better we had learned to communicate over the course of this relationship, but today we forgot all that and let our emotions get the best of us. Driving to school I was in deep thought about how this had happened when I saw an adorable little boy, maybe four or five years old at the most, waiting for the bus in a wheelchair. This image struck me hard inside and I found myself going around the block to see the little boy again. After the second time I pulled over a block from where he sat to catch my breath. You see, I had just dropped off my little boy who just started to walk, and here sat this one in a wheelchair.

I thought how lucky I was to have a healthy boy and thoughts of everything I was fortunate enough to have appeared to me. I also have a nephew who is in a wheelchair so seeing a handicapped boy always strikes a nerve within me. I was emotional again, but it was a warm feeling that melted away my anger of the argument.

I should have used a different approach to her awakening upset rather than fuel the problem. It didn’t matter who was right or wrong, the disagreement was just senseless. I couldn’t call her because she was at work so I sent her a text apologizing for being a meathead. I got a quick apology in return and the peace came back to my world. I couldn’t help but want to go and thank the little boy in the chair, but drove on to school. I probably would have looked ridiculous going up to this kid who was there with his mother and saying anything.

It’s another lesson in life that all of us should learn. Too many times we let the pettiness of trivial matters get the best of us and they snowball into harsh words and sometimes, even violence. Next time you find yourself in a similar situation step back, take a deep breath and ask yourself, “is it really that bad, what can I do to change it?”