Whose Honor Argument Analysis

I would like to show my family and friends the In Whose Honor video because they always make the argument that mascots aren’t hurting anyone. Additionally, I think this film would have the most impact because my high school, Maconaquah High School, still has a mascot called “the Brave” and at sports games, like football and basketball, they still wave their arms in the motion of a tomahawk chop. Watching Charlene Peters tell her story about her protest of the University of Illinois mascot, Chief Illiniwek was very moving, especially when she talked about the time she took her kids to a basketball game and they became quiet when the mascot came out. In the some of the website resources we looked at for class we learned that the American Psychological …show more content…
The staff acted like they were honoring Native American culture by having an Indian mascot with real eagle feathers. They ignored the fact that they were dealing with sacred aspects of Native American religion. In the book, Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer, there is a discussion about why Indian mascots are so offensive. He agree with Peters that “most [Native Americans] do not feel honored” by mascots and therefore that that argument holds no real weight. Additionally, he also talks about when schools with descendants of Native Americans have Indian warriors for mascots like the Red Lake Warriors it is not mockery because they are actually descended from warriors. However, Treuer does mention that he “never miss[es] a chance to encourage Red Lake and other native schools to change their mascots so I does not confuse others” (Treuer, 119-121). While I do see Treuer’s point, if Native Americans are having Indian mascots, they are probably treating them with more deference than the University of …show more content…
It also is an example of an ethnographic study where I think the ethnographer did a good job of staying objective while still making friends and interacting with the people who lived in Martin, South Dakota. The book does a good job of showing how racial tensions can pop up out of the blue, between co-workers, friends, and families because of certain misunderstandings or events. An example of this would be the protest of the homecoming celebration of the crowing of the Warrior Princess of Bennett County. The protestors were in the gym protesting while the ceremony was going on and a shouting match ensued between the parents of the students and the Indian protestors, some of which were parents themselves. The chapter ends with the image of a “non-Indian woman married to a fullblood [Native American] man” cradling “their mixedblood baby” as she wept (Wagoner, Chap 2.). A powerful image that shows how the tensions between the groups affect the mixed families of Bennett County. What was interesting to me was that the next day at the homecoming parade there were floats that had symbols showing the different ethnicities working together and the whole town came out and cheered. This example shows how different situations call for different reactions among the