Are tribal mascots racist?

And having a mascot running around in all green dressed as a leprechaun isn't racist or offensive?

To be honest, I've never watched a game.

I'll tell you a little secret... leprechauns aren't real.

well you aren't irish then, are you?

My dad had a leprechaun in his room named Shamus - he would at times, leave treats and change for the kids.

Or so one would think. Even the teams that worked with tribes are being made to change their names and logos.

An Irish Leprechaun would be named Seamus.
My point is, the Norwegian aren't pissed about Santa, or the Italians with befana, or Canada with the beaver. These are symbols already, not taking a respected figure among a people or an entire culture and reducing it to a cartoon.
If the Celtics were called the Boston Bog Hoppers or the Minnesota Mic's, we'd be having a different discussion.

Scottish, Irish, and the rest of us who are sort of generically known as "Anglos" regardless of actual origins have found nothing to complain of. Now, if we had off reservation schools with teams called, say, The Fighting Irish or The Celtics, I suppose someone would make a comparison to The Chieftains. So far; so good.

And, at the moment, the University of North Dakota is facing sanctions from the NCAA if they fail to change their mascot from "Fighting Sioux". I fail to see why that is unacceptable if "Fighting Irish" works for Notre Dame.

Snood? Don't tell me there isn't a major difference between n****bockers, an obvious and wrongful bastardization of the team name no matter what the team's winning percentage and the Celtic nott so offensive mascot counterpart. So the question is pretty loaded. I'm a Boston fan yet have an English ancestry (for the most part) so maybe I have a separate set of biases in this case.

You know with they way us Irish love a good joke - and our sense of humor - we wouldn't be offended if instead of the Fighting Irish you called them the F*cking Irish.

Very good point...

You know, General Hooker in the Civil War has Fighting Joe Hooker as a sobriquet. Since his name has become synonymous with prostitute, he's lucky they didn't call him F*cking Joe Hooker.

Maybe he was a really good fighter.

savages would offend me.

redskins, however, doesn't.

in fact I went to high school as a redskin, proudly.

the school was built in the twenties, and the archetecture is very beautiful with the indian motifs.

I see it as celebrating the spirit of the plains indians, not defiling or mocking it...

Across the Illinois River from Peoria is the city of Pekin, Illinois. It was reputedly so named because of Chinese workers on the railroad (Peking become Pekin). They used to call their sports teams 'the Chinks" until public pressure became too great. That might have been called racist. These others? Tempest in a teapot.

Teams should be named after their fans:

The Minnesota Musclebound White Boys.
The Atlanta RedNecks
The Boston Wicked Pissers
The New York Foulmouths
The Pittsburgh Dumbshits
The Texas Assholes
The Arizona Conspirators
The Oklahoma Gun Nuts


I actually want to have one of those Boston shirts

Joe(I do)Nation

PS: Speaking as the father of two Native American sons: The use of Indian imagery for purposes of team puffery is racist.

Yeh, it was an extreme comparison. I was trying to address the suggestion that team success affects public tolerance of mascot names.

I believe the correct spelling is "Wikkid Pissah".

It has become a tempest because of the money involved -- an estimate $10,000 - $100,000 per school to change uniforms, signage, and refinishing sports courts. The schools are all broke and nobody knows where the money is going to come from.

Is it racist if there is no puffery involved?

When Pekin changed their team name, "boosters" stepped forward to take up those costs, and making it clear that they were offfended that "outsiders" were offended. (Their claim was that nobody in Pekin was offended. I don't know if anyone in Peoria, with a large Chinese community was offended. Peoria is the second or third largest city in Illinois.)

It is certainly understandable that people get exercised in the circumstances. My reference to a tempest in a teapot is the claim that tribal mascots are racist. When fans of the Atlanta Braves were using the "tomahawk chop" gesture, spokesmen for Indian groups claimed that the gesture was sacred and its use in a non-native-American-religious context was offensive. Oh please . . . these things get carried too far, too often. I'm not offended by the Boston Celtics' silly mascot, nor the "Fighting Irish" of Notre Dame, altthough it can be said to promote an offensive stereotype.

Chink is fairly racist sounding. I could understand an objection to at team being called The Injuns. I just haven't heard on one that uses that.