Description
Book SynopsisActivists and academics explore the origins of Native American mascots, the messages they convey, and the reasons for their persistence into the twenty-first century. These essays examine hotly contested uses of mascots, including the Washington Redskins, the Cleveland Indians, and the University of Illinois's Chief Illiniwek.
Trade Review“Each of the essays provides a different perspective, but all agree that the use of Indians as mascots is demeaning, patronizing, and a paradigm of Indian-white power relationships. . . . Separate articles by King and Springwood treat perceptively those Indians who support mascots, and are alone worth the price of the book. . . . One need look no farther for information on why and how Indian mascots exist and ought to disappear into oblivion.”—
Choice“Every time I watch the Washington Redskins or the Cleveland Indians (with their grotesque Chief Wahoo) I wonder what it must feel like to be a Native American sports fan and see oneself depicted this way. It just plain gives me the willies.
Team Spirits shows me why.”—Rick Telander, sports columnist,
Chicago Sun-Times"This is an excellent collection of different viewpoints that challenge readers to reconsider how the selective perceptions of majority groups can persist in keeping down ethnic minorities."—Sunamita Lim,
The Santa Fe New Mexican"A valuable and important volume. . . . Each offering is methodical, careful in its argument, fulsome in its data-work, and above all, careful to avoid succumbing to the almost inevitable polemics such issues appear to raise."—
Aethlon“The greatest contribution
Team Spirits offers to the literature on mascots is the excellent histories . . . on the origin of particular mascots and efforts taken to change or eliminate them. For in these histories—and in the defense mascot supporters proffer when challenged—lies the potential for understanding why people concoct mascots in the first place and why they grow so fond of keeping them in the face of opposition. . . .
Team Spirits should appeal not only to scholars but to activists in mascot disputes around the country.”—David P. Rider,
American Studies“An invaluable collection of essays that thoroughly examine the American legacy of Native American mascots.
Team Spirits fills an important social, political, and intellectual void in American Indian Studies literature, and serves as the first comprehensive examination of the growing mascots controversy.”—Joseph A. Martin,
Anthropology and Education Quarterly“C. Richard King and Charles Fruehling Springwood have collected fourteen critical essays, with a foreword by Vine Deloria Jr., which examine this matter from a variety of perspectives and provide some well needed historical and sociological context for the debate.”—
Indigenous Nations Studies JournalTable of ContentsContents: Acknowledgments Foreword - Vine Deloria Jr. Introduction: Imagined Indians, Social Identities, and Activism - C. Richard King and Charles Fruehling Springwood Part 1. Inventions 1. Chief Bill Orange and the Saltine Warrior: A Cultural History of Indian Symbols and Imagery at Syracuse University - Donald M. Fisher 2. Becoming the Indians: Fashioning Arkansas State University's Indians - Mary Landreth 3. Wennebojo Meets the Mascot: A Trickster's View of the Central Michigan University Mascot/Logo - Richard Clark Eckert 4. Sockalexis and the Making of the Myth at the Core of Cleveland's "Indian" Image - Ellen J. Staurowsky Part 2. Whiteness 5. The Fighting Braves of Michigamua: Adopting the Visage of American Indian Warriors in the Halls of Academia - Patrick Russell LeBeau 6. The Best Offense . . Dissociation, Desire, and the Defense of the Florida State University Seminoles - C. Richard King and Charles Fruehling Springwood 7. At Home in Illinois: Presence of Chief Illiniwek, Absence of Native Americans - David Prochaska Part 3. Activism 8. Fighting Name-Calling: Challenging "Redskins" in Court - Suzan Shown Harjo 9. Last of the Mohicans, Braves, and Warriors: The End of American Indian Mascots in Los Angeles Public Schools - Ann Marie (Amber) Machamer 10. Escaping the Tyranny of the Majority: A Case Study of Mascot Change - Laurel R. Davis and Malvina T. Rau Part 4. Interventions 11. In Whose Honor?, Mascots, and the Media - Jay Rosenstein 12. School Teachers and Mascots: Challenging Contradictions - Cornel D. Pewewardy Part 5. Complications 13. Uneasy Indians: Creating and Contesting Native American Mascots at Marquette University - C. Richard King 14. Playing Indian and Fighting (for) Mascots: Reading the Complications of Native American and Euro-American Alliances - Charles Fruehling Springwood Epilogue: Closing Arguments, Opening Dialogues - Charles Fruehling Springwood and C. Richard King Contributors; Index
