Native Americans Fight Uphill Battle To Change Mascots

NAPERVILLE, Ill. - Her peers cheered wildly at the pep rally scalping of an Indian, but Wabigonence White wasn't laughing.

A Native American whose family left a Wisconsin reservation about four years ago, White, 17, found the skit a cruel stereotype of her heritage. She felt stung when her school's mascot, the Naperville North High School husky, ravaged the Redskin of crosstown rival Naperville Central.

``They really cheered when that husky beat up that Redskin and scalped him,'' White said. ``I wanted to leave. Everyone thought it was fun. I didn't stand, cheer, clap or anything. I told my mom and dad when I got home that I was upset by it.''

The incident is the kind a group of Native Americans is using in seeking the removal of the school's mascot. They say the word ``redskin'' itself is a slur, and the buckskinned mascot makes a mockery out of Native American culture and its religious rituals.

``They're a caricature of Indian people,'' said White's father, Dennis White, 43, an Ojibwa (or Chippewa) Indian who moved his family from his tribe's reservation in Hayward, Wis., in 1987.

The opposing response by many students, teachers and parents at Naperville Central resembles that of other schools nationwide whose Indian mascot has been targeted by Native American activists. Mascot supporters say they find nothing offensive about the Redskin and call it a symbol of pride, dignity, strength, honor.

Principal Tom Paulsen said his school presents the mascot tastefully - whether as a costumed student at athletic contests or in an artist's rendering on a logo.

``We do not portray it in a derogatory way,'' he said. ``We feel it is appropriate.''

The Naperville Central controversy parallels the arguments of last year's dispute over the University of Illinois' Indian mascot, Chief Illiniwek, which Indian activists failed to change.

James Yellowbank, coordinator of the Indian Treaty Rights Committee in Chicago, was among the Native American leaders protesting the Chief Illiniwek mascot. He is helping lead the protest against Naperville Central.

He said the effort to abolish Indian mascots had mixed success.

The Niles, Ill., high-school district board voted against changing the Indian mascot for Niles West in early 1989, but Stanford University and Dartmouth College dropped the Indian as their mascot in the 1970s. Faith Smith, president of the Native American Educational Services College in Chicago, added that several Minnesota schools had dropped mascots relating to the Indian.

Smith and Yellowbank began meeting with Naperville school officials and students last fall when they were contacted by a resident, Andrea Nott, 37.

Nott, who said a family legend holds that Mohawks are among her ancestors, said she found the mascot demeaning and sacrilegious toward Native Americans, especially when a youth dresses as a war-whooping Indian chief, waving a tomahawk during games.

Yellowbank agreed: ``The San Diego Padres don't have a padre go out and do communion during the seventh-inning stretch. . . . It portrays us as something less than human beings.''

Said Smith: ``The Indians were stereotyped as noble savages with dignity, strength and power. So a number of schools adopted them as symbols and not real people, and it never got challenged until today. Racism is so insidious that people do it without knowing they do it.''

The executive board of Naperville Central's booster club, composed of parents, found nothing offensive in the mascot and rejected the notion of a change earlier this month, said athletic director Ross Truemper.

For Wabigonence White, the Redskin remains an offensive symbol. Wabigonence, which means ``little flower'' in Ojibwa, said she becomes sad and disgusted at the sight of the Redskin mascot on the sidelines.

``They still portray the Indian as being a savage,'' White said. ``They make the Indian look like they're not alive, like they're part of the past - dead. But we're still here.''