It was once said by Richard Henry Pratt, the director of the Carlisle school for Indians, “Let us by patient effort kill the Indian in him and save the man.” However, this is not the whole story of how dominant American society would perceive Native peoples.

In effect they wanted their land, labor and finally their culture. During a period when thousands of Native children were getting the “Indian” beat out of them, countless sports teams, universities, Boy Scouts, Campfire girls and marketing associates were using the image and culture of Native peoples to advance their own agendas.

No one asked Native Americans how they felt about this continuous image-robbery and distortion because no one cared; Indians were not even given American citizenship until 1924. Thus, over the past century, the nostalgic image of the “noble savage” has adorned millions of jerseys, ball caps, flags, mugs, buildings and numerous other forms of media.

Within the last 20 years Native American mascots have become controversial due to their racist and demeaning connotations. Even within Native American communities there is a raging debate as to how and in what way these mascots affect Native Americans today. As with many controversies, this is a complex and deeply rooted issue.

Native American mascots arose in a time when blatant racism was widely acceptable. Indigenous peoples were not seen as dynamic or progressive, but rather as static individuals who would continue to live in an unsophisticated and backwards manner. Hence, the idea of the “noble savage” was born and personified by people such as Buffalo Bill, circuses, toy manufacturers and Hollywood studios that wanted to capitalize on a dying culture.

What is unfortunate about Native American mascots today is that they were not wiped out of American pop culture along with their ethnic counterparts, such as Sambos, Frito Bandito, pickaninnies and many other ethnically degrading caricatures.

These mascots affect the way Native peoples are perceived both by the general public and by Native people. By using caricatures and titles that are degrading, Native American mascots dehumanize the population they try to represent. Historically, the dehumanization of a population has been used to justify immense forms of cruelty, brutality and ultimately to commit genocide.

Yet, many Americans argue that Native American mascots are a form of honoring. To this comment, Glen T. Morris, a member of the American Indian Movement, replied in 1992: “If people are genuinely interested in honoring Indians, try getting your government to live up to the more than 400 treaties it signed with our nations.

“Try respecting our religious freedom, which has been repeatedly denied in federal courts.

“Try stopping the ongoing theft of Indian water and other natural resources.

“Try reversing your colonial process that relegates us to the most impoverished, polluted and desperate conditions in the country.

“Try understanding that the mascot issue is only the tip of a very huge problem of continuing racism against American Indians.

“Then maybe your ‘honors’ will mean something. Until then, it’s just superficial, hypocritical puffery.”

People should remember that an honor isn’t born when it parts the honorer’s lips, it is born when it is accepted in the honoree’s ear.

Native American mascots are not about honoring anything except the embedded racist ideologies that continue to vibrate through dominant American culture.

Native American mascots are intricately tied to the unbalanced treatment of Native peoples throughout the United States. A 1999 Department of Justice study found that Native Americans suffered the highest rate of violent crimes, ‘in fact the rate of crimes against Indians is two and a half times the national average; 60 percent of their attackers are white.’ If you think this is only national and not regional, you are very wrong.

According to an article appearing in The Spokesman-Review in 2004, “Native Americans are three times more likely to be murdered than the general population. Their lives are six times more likely to end in an alcohol-related death; in Spokane County half of all Native Americans live in poverty. They suffer more health problems, unemployment and crime than the rest of the population.”

This is not solely a problem of violence but one of self-esteem as well. Native American youth have the highest suicide rate in the nation, with one out of every five attempting suicide.

These overwhelming violent crime and suicide rates will not drop until the general American people choose to see Native Americans as human beings, with the same hopes, dreams, fears and emotions that any other person would feel. However, as long as Native American mascots portray Native peoples as static, unchanging and subhuman, racist ideologies and hegemonic beliefs will overshadow any attempt to heal old wounds and build new bridges.