For individuals who view being American as central to their sense of self, the reality of Native oppression (e.g., genocide, police brutality) threatens their ability to maintain a positive national identity. We theorize that long-standing narratives in American culture erase and dehumanize Natives, enabling non-Natives to psychological distance and justify Native oppression as a means of protecting positive national identity.We illustrate this protective process using the example of Native mascots. We first demonstrate that Native mascots erase and dehumanize Natives and then illustrate how the use of Native mascots protects national identity. We conclude by calling for individual-and institutional-level changes to create a society free of harmful and toxic narratives and the practices that perpetuate these narratives.
While major organizations representing Native Americans (e.g., National Congress of American Indians) contend that Native mascots are stereotypical and dehumanizing, sports teams with Native mascots cite polls claiming their mascots are not offensive to Native people. We conducted a large-scale, empirical study to provide a valid and generalizable understanding of Native Americans’ ( N = 1,021) attitudes toward Native mascots. Building on the identity centrality literature, we examined how multiple aspects of Native identification uniquely shaped attitudes toward mascots. While Native Americans in our sample generally opposed Native mascots, especially the Redskins, attitudes varied according to demographic characteristics (e.g., age, political orientation, education) and the strength of participants’ racial–ethnic identification. Specifically, stronger Native identification (behavioral engagement and identity centrality) predicted greater opposition. Results highlight the importance of considering the unique and multifaceted aspects of identity, particularly when seeking to understand Native people’s attitudes and experiences.
In recent years, several high-profile individuals were sanctioned (e.g., fired) when photos of them dressed in blackface surfaced. Yet, every weekend during sports seasons, fans dress in redface to support teams with Native mascots. Given the observed discrepancy, five studies examined whether and why the perceived acceptability of these two racialized representations differs. Across varying methods and designs, we found that redface was perceived as more acceptable than blackface. The differential acceptability was explained by the extent to which people believe that Native (vs. Black) Peoples: 1) largely do not exist within contemporary social contexts (i.e., social erasure) and 2) experience less racism. The results suggest that eliminating racialized representations requires understanding the role that sociocultural factors play in sustaining discrimination and prejudice.
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