Big noses, tomahawks, war paint, feathered headdresses: these are the types of things people think of when they hear that a school or sports team has a Native American mascot. These representations, although many people do not believe it, are racist. My high school’s mascot happens to be the chieftain and up until my senior year, it was represented as a characterized head of an indigenous person. Many students in the school fought to, as they put it, “save the chieftain,” failing to see that using a native person as a mascot is not honoring their culture. This issue is not confined to my school, recently in the media there has been a debate on whether or not the Washington Redskins must change their offensive name and logo. Although many people
