The issue of Native-themed sports mascots has been much in the news lately, most recently with the ongoing controversy over a decision to end the University of North Dakota’s use of the Fighting Sioux mascot. (See yesterday’s post here.)

Students at the University of Colorado-Denver have been paying attention, and are weighing in on the side of ending all use of such mascots.

“It’s just blatantly racist when you have teams that are called, you know, the savages,” Charles Panke, a Lakota Sioux descendant, tells Denver’s 9News, here. (Watch a video of the newcast here.)

Panke dismisses claims that such mascots actually honor Native people. “You don’t honor somebody by doing these tomahawk chops that are not part of any Native American culture whatsoever or even doing war whoops or things like that,” he says.

So Panke and others in the Ethnic Studies department created the “I am not a Mascot” video. They’re going to post it to Facebook and YouTube, but we haven’t found it there yet; when we do, we’ll post it.

Darius Lee Smith, with the Colorado Indian Education Foundation, points out that Colorado has nearly 20 schools that use Indian mascots, and of course there are many more around the country.

And he applauds the ethnic make-up of the students who made the video. “”The majority of the individuals are Non-native. I think that’s why this project is so important.”

He wants the Colorado High School Activities Association to push schools to change such logos and mascots, just as the National Collegiate Athletic Association has done nationally.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Colorado High School Activities Association, Colorado Indian Education Foundation, Cultural insensitivity, Darius Lee Smith, Ethnic Studies Department, Fighting Sioux, Gwen Florio, Lakota, National Collegiate Athletic Association, Native American news, NCAA, Team nicknames, University of Colorado Denver, University of North Dakota