In the 1930s, the good people of Pekin, Ill., decided they needed a mascot for their high school sports teams. Pekin was named for Peking (now Beijing), China, so they gave their teams a related nickname: the Chinks . At the start of every basketball game, a Chink and Chinklette — that is, a boy and girl dressed in Chinese attire — would walk into the center of the court and bow.

As the start of the NFL season draws near, I’ve got a question for you: How is the Chink any worse than the Redskin, the feather-clad mascot of Washington’s pro football franchise?

It isn’t. The only difference is that the Redskin purports to be American Indian, not Chinese. And unlike any other ethnic group, Native Americans remain fair game for bigotry on game day. …show more content…
Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) suggested that the name could become an issue if the team wished to move into the District from its current home in suburban Maryland.

The Redskins’ response was simple: Forget about it. “We’ll never change the name,” owner Daniel Snyder said. “Never — you can use caps.” On its Web site, the team posted a link to a list of more than 70 high schools in 25 states that still use the mascot.

But all that proved is that Native American mascots have staying power, which we knew already. The real question is why — and what it says about the rest of us.

Most Indian mascots date to the early 20th century, when white Americans worried that modern industrial life was eroding traditional masculine virtues: strength, stoicism and aggression. So college and professional sports teams named themselves after Native Americans, who seemed to embody precisely the qualities that white men had forsaken.

At the same time, though, the mascots also confirmed whites’ sense of superiority. With their headdresses and beads, their tomahawks and war whoops, the Indian mascots seemed like