Racism in the Sport Media

A great struggle is being fought between certain sport clubs and universities and The National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media (NCRSM). The aim of NCRSM is to ban the usage of Native American names, spiritual and cultural symbols by professional sports, Hollywood, schools, and universities. In her work, Charlene Taters, a member of Native American community, says that The American Indian community for 50 years has worked to banish images and names like Cleveland's chief wahoo, Washington redskins, Kansas City chiefs or Atlanta braves. We work to remind people of consciousness of the use of the symbols resemblance to other historic, racist images of the past. Chief wahoo offends Indian people the same way that little black sambo offended African Americans and the frito bandito offended the Hispanic community and should have offended all of us. It assaults the principle of justice she argues. And really, such misusage of any cultural heritage can be translated as dishonoring step against certain social minority. In that case, this objectionable image spread throughout the media is causing a great damage. Taters illustrates this damage quite well. Using our names, likeness and religious symbols to excite the crowd does not feel like honor or respect, it is hurtful and confusing to our young people. To reduce the victims of genocide to a mascot is unthinking, at least, and immoral at worst. At this point, effort of NCRSM was not in vain. At least six universities have changed their names, the Los Angeles Board of Education voted to ban Indian images and names. Unfortunately, the sport clubs are still resisting the pressure. Therefore, there is- and will be- the ongoing battle.

The NCRSM exists to fight the powerful influence of major media who choose to promulgate messages of oppression. The impetus which formed NCRSM was the clear case of media coupling imagery with widely held misconceptions of American Indians in the form of sports team identities resulting in racial, cultural, and spiritual stereotyping.

Picture bellow is taken from National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media in order to illustrate the point.

Works Cited: Taters, Charlene. National Coalition on Racism in sports and Media.
www.aimovement.com
National Coalition on Racism in sports and Media.