UND’s Fighting Sioux Nickname Gets 1 Tribe’s OK

Ordinary American Indians are not offended by these nicknames. Only radicalized fools stirred up by white leftists hop on this bandwagon, which is why this controversy is limited only to college teams.

I say that except for the racist term Red Skins, it is an honor to have your tribe named as a team mascot.I have never met a Swede or Dane who resented the Vikings, I have never heard an Englishmen be upset about the Saxons, or an Irishman mad about the Celtics or Fighting Irish. My fellow Scots-irish are not offended about the Mountaineers, Volunteers or Rebels. When our paratrooper yelled Geronimo when they jumped into Hell, they were honoring the Apache leader. It will only be when we have the Seattle Zulus, the Indiana Impis, or the Boston Bantus that blacks will be totally free from political pandering.
Charles B. Tiffany
Kissimmee, Florida

I don’t know. If were an AI, I might actually feel weird about it. Maybe not though. The ‘Battling Germanics’ might be kinda cool. No scratch that. I don’t want a cheesy cartoon character asociated with my presious ancient culture. I side w/ the pissed off Standing Rock Sioux. Lets stick w/ animals or anything non-human for mascots. Ok?

A tragic consequence of stripping teams of their Indian nicknames and mascots is that a noble people and their honorable heritage will be further marginalized until they might become all but forgotten in our capricious culture. I thought, in this case anyway, some diversity really was desirable.

I’ll take this opportunity to remind AmRen readers that, in solidarity with the NAACP boycott of South Carolina over the location of a Confederate flag on Statehouse grounds, the NCAA is disallowing any college basketball playoff games to be hosted at South Carolina schools.

The NCAA should concern itself with athletic matters, not authoritarian political correctness. We really shouldn’t be following sports anymore anyway. Major League Baseball is actually promoting a “Civil Rights Game” this season, and retired (black) NFL coach Tony Dungy is pushing for the NCAA to require all college football organizations to consider black applicants for their head coaching positions. The NFL has already received similar pressure from the now deceased famous O.J. Simpson legal attorney, Johnny (“the glove”) Cochrane.

If the Sioux have a problem with UND using the Sioux name than fine, UND shouldn’t give them that honor. I suggest UND choose a new name such as the Norsemen. I’m sure no Scandinavians will be ‘offended’.

I suppose from the Indian’s point of view this is kind of like me thinking a team full of black men calling themselves the Minnesota Vikings is rather stupid. I would not ban it or say it is offensive but it really doesn’t fit at all.

Another consideration that nobody has brought up is that state itself is named after the same tribe. Sioux is just the French name for the Dakota Indians. What other option is there for UND? Sugar Beats, Channel Cats, Henpecked Wheat Farmers, I-29ers?

Personally, I find the whole spectacle of AI tribes whining about mascots to be most amusing. Anyone remember the “Fightin’ Whites” craze of 2002? Brief recap:

Some AIs (not sure what tribes(s)) at Univ. Northern Colorado were upset about Indian mascots in general, and a nearby high school’s in particular, and decided to name their intramural basketball team The Fighting Whites, to show all us evil Anglos how it feels to be stereotyped. Rush Limbaugh hears about it, finds it hilarious, and does a segment about it on his program. Immediately, white people everywhere find it equally hilarious, and buy a boatload of FW merch. I believe the name was dropped when the AIs realized that whites were amused rather than offended.

The only downside to the whole debacle was that the money raised from merch sales went into a scholarship for minority students (anyone who’s not white) and as usual, whites footed the bill once again. At least they did it voluntarily this time.

I’m 3/16 Amerind, and have never been offended by these mascots and logos. On the other hand, I have never paid much attention to team sports. Even in the white-dominated winter Olympics, I don’t watch much except the giant slalom (does anyone remember Ingemar Stenmark?) and the biathalon (skiing AND shooting - how cool is that?) I find racial and ethnic stereotypes hilarious because they’re true. Scotsmen cheap? I’m thrifty even by those standards. Let’s see. Today I am wearing an “Extreme Pizza” T-shirt I got for free, a flannel Field & Stream shirt I got at Costco for $10, a pair of “Faded Glory” jeans I got at Wal Mart for $10, a pair of New Balance sneakers I got on sale at Famous Footware four years ago and a pair of shooting glasses I bought back in 1998. I haven’t been able to work in my old field as a research chemist since 2000, but the house and cars are all paid for. If the teams were being deliberately malicious, they’d play up the drunkenness stereotype, but they’re not.

I can see one major advantage to abolishing these Amerind team names, mascots and logos, and that’s that it would leave the usual perpetual complainers despondant over the fact that they’d have less to whine about. The whiners are unlike the rest of us in that they LIKE getting worked up and feigning moral outrage over trivial non-issues. It completes them the way low-IQ Hollyweirdo celebrities, dissatisfied with unearned wealth and fame feel the need to purchase reputations for moral superiority by adopting the whole Third-World (yes, you know who I’m referring to) the way crazy women take in dozens of stray cats. Imagine the anguish these pathetic creatures would experience if they had to suffer through days at a time without being able to complain about anything before they were forced to invent something new to pretend to be upset about.