All right, I'll give it a try . . .
There really is something very different between "Fighting Irish" and
"Fighting Sioux". The University of Notre Dame, while founded by French
Jesuits, has had an Irish Catholic president since about 1860, well
before they adopted the name. That is an entirely different context for
the adoption of the name than is a situation in which you have conquered
people, stolen their lands, and then appropriated their names, symbols,
and images for your own use. If you don't understand why the
distinction between "us" and "them" is important, I can't explain it to
you but I think that not getting it betrays a woeful lack of empathy.
It's that distinction that makes the issue of using Native American
mascots important. They really should only be used with the permission
of the peoples themselves.
Now, on to North Dakota and why this particular case turned into such a
mess. When the NCAA finally woke up to the fact that this was a serious
issue that needed to be addressed, various member institutions reacted
in different ways. At one end of the spectrum you had Florida State;
FSU had always recognized the importance of the issue and not only had
gotten permission from the Seminole tribe to use the name, they paid the
tribe a licensing fee all along. So they had no problem keeping the
name. Then you had schools that either changed their name without
making it much of an issue or tried to find a path through which they
secured permission from the tribe whose name they were using. With this
in mind, the NCAA set forth a rule that said that if a school could get
a tribe to pass a referendum okaying the use of a tribal name, it was
okay to use it.
Then there was North Dakota, which threw a temper tantrum about the very
idea that this was an important issue. They fought the NCAA at every
step of the way and turned it into the biggest possible pain in the
ass. They finally, after immense foot dragging, submitted to the new
NCAA rule. There were three bands of Sioux whose permission they
needed. Two of them passed the resolution. The third said that their
band had no legal procedure for taking a referendum and that they had no
intention of creating a special procedure just for this matter. So UND
was unable to secure the required permissions to keep the name "Sioux".
It's my belief that had UND acted in a cooperative manner instead of
causing as much trouble for the NCAA as they could then the NCAA would
have been willing to find a workaround given the odd circumstances.
However, since UND had been uncooperative to the point of filing
lawsuits and stirring up the North Dakota legislature (which, I think,
they eventually wished they hadn't), the NCAA dropped the hammer on them
and refused to consider any alternatives. UND has no one to blame but
itself for the way this played out and the fact that the NCAA was
unwilling to compromise at all. Then you had the legislature deciding
to pass a law forbidding the university from changing its name, which
only made UND's situation worse.
So now they are without a nickname until 2015 because the legislators
they agitated told them they can't.
On 6/4/2013 8:59 AM, Tom wrote:
> Are they really planning on calling themselves the Coyotes? Why not
> the fighting Coyotes? Could they get away with calling themselves the
> Sioux?
>
> The one thing in this whole, long process I never understood was why
> "Fighting Sioux" was an abusive nickname. You have all kinds of
> nicknames for sports teams (including the "Fighting Irish") and some
> of them use abusive logos (Chief Wahoo of Cleveland) but this one got
> all the press. I guess I'm just dense because I still don't get it.
>
> Tom Rowe
>
> Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
>
> On 6/4/2013 7:23 AM, John Edwards wrote:
>> The last line was the best one:
>> "UND now uses the nickname Coyotes."
>>
>> I don't know who would be more surprised by this bit of news: UND
>> (who is banned from having a nickname until 2015) or USD (who
>> actually *are* the Coyotes).
>>
>> John
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On 2013-06-04, at 7:36 AM, Joe Makowiec <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>>> Two groups of Native Americans do not have standing to keep the
>>>> University of North Dakota from retiring its use of the
>>>> controversial "Fighting Sioux" nickname, the 8th Circuit ruled.
>>> Full story:
>>>
>>> http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/05/31/58118.htm
>>>
>>> Joe
>>> --
>>> Joe Makowiec can be reached at:
>>> http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
>>> http://makowiec.org/
>
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