The New York Fighting Jews

One story in Sherman Alexie's book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, stood out for me, and any questions that I might have pertaining to life on a reservation, I go right back to "The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn't Flash Red Anymore." Apparently, the lady who made up some discussion questions at the back of the book felt the same way because she listed at least one question pertaining to it:

                         Question #7. "In 'The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation' Alexie depicts baseball as having extraordinary significance on the reservation. With what meaning(s) is baseball invested? Why?"

Now, I didn't remember baseball being mentioned, so I went back and looked at it again. Nope. No baseball, but of course there was lots of basketball. Someone should slap Carol Rawlings-Miller on the back of her hand.

Basketball is mentioned in several stories, indicating just how important it is to Indians on the reservation. (Shame on you Carol.)  It seems like the game is all they have. It's a ticket to get out and a way to create heroes.

Another sport that is sort of mentioned is football. Now, it wasn't mentioned in the sense that Indians pick up a game in the reservation dirt every now and again, but the team Washington Redskins were brought up with the undertone of  a touchy subject.

Living around Asheville, NC, which is close to the Cherokee reservation, there are (or there used to be) a few high school mascots with Indian names; Students at Erwin High School are called the Warriors, those at Cherokee High School call themselves the Braves, and in Canton, GA, the Warriors still take the court in the winter to shoot some hoops.

When I was playing softball for my high school (a long time ago), I remember playing Erwin High and thinking just how cool their mascot was. I mean the girls' softball team was called the Squaws. Cool right? Apparently not. Shortly after I graduated high school, the Buncombe County Board of Education, in 1998, was pressured into eliminating the term "Squaws" for the girls' teams. According to this, "squaw," in some American Indian languages, can refer to a prostitute or to the female genitalia. Okay, so maybe not such a good idea.

Still the controversy is alive and well throughout the U.S. whether it involves high schools, colleges, or pro sports teams.

What I didn't understand at the time is that using an Indian for a mascot isn't honoring them as great warriors. It doesn't say that our school or our team wants to be fierce and be great victors on the basketball court or the football field. It's depicting an entire people as a cartoon. It's saying that these people aren't people at all they are only a symbol of a feral, savage warrior that got its roots from Hollywood and John Wayne.


One of the points made in my research is that we don't depict other races with mascots. There would be hell to pay if there was a team called New York Fighting Jews, the Chicago Blacks, or the San Antonio Latinos. (Which is a poster in this video on the right that captured these slogans on pennants.) That would be ludicrousness. No other race in this country would accept that. Why do we expect the Indians to?

Yet we do.

My favorite baseball team is the Atlanta Braves. I'd sit in the stands with my dad and we'd do the tomahawk chop and chant with everyone else. The next time I take my kids to a game, I'll be explaining to them why we won't be participating in that ritual any more. I'll miss it, but values are more important. The Braves are still my team...  until they see that it hurts a people and a nation. Maybe one day they'll change it.

And with that I'll leave you this.