Viewpoint

By Susan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne/Hodulgee/Muscogee)

Traditional names of Native nations are precise, powerful, beautiful: Aztatlan. Dakota. Diné. Hopitu. Inupiaq. Tsistsistas. Our names are important and mean something mighty: Human Beings. Friends United. Peaceful People. We Are Created In This Place.

Traditional names were changed by outsiders to unimportant words or to insults in others' languages: Enemies. Bean-Eaters. Stupids. It was so symbolic as to be substantive. It was meant to break our spirit. Yet, here we are, strong peoples, returning to our original national and personal names.

Our names also get used to market other people's merchandise. Cherokee is not a Jeep. Crazy Horse is not malt liquor. That's cultural thievery, disrespectful to living peoples and our heroes.

The assertion of Native identities and cultural property rights is the protection side of the cultural reclamation movement. The offense side involves name-calling and stereotyping of Native Americans in popular culture.

"Redskins" is at the top of the heap on the offense side. Its origins are despicable, arising from bounty-hunting days, when hauling "Indian kill" by the gunnysack and wagonload became too cumbersome. Bounties then were paid for scalplocks, instead of heads, and bloody "red skins," in lieu of whole bodies of Native children, women and men.

In the annals of European American historical, journalistic and other creative writing about Native peoples, "redskins" was and is the worst racial epithet hurled at us in English. Many Americans now understand that the word is unfit for polite society.

The biggest promoters of the slur-the National Football League and Washington's professional football organization-say the word "honors Native Americans." The overwhelming majority of our people say that the "r-word" never was an honorific, and no amount of repetition can make it one.

The team's owners did not do the right thing, so seven of us sued them in 1992, on the theory that they might do the prudent thing. We petitioned the federal government to stop protecting the disparaging name. We asked for cancellation of the trademarks that give the team's owners the exclusive privilege of making money off the odious word.

The contest is between protection against racism and profit from racism, and which one deserves backing by the federal government. A federal panel ruled in our favor in April. They cancelled the trademark protections for the name, pending appeal.
We believe the name will be abandoned, once devalued. Our hope is that the name will be surrendered to history without a fight to the bitter end.

Our case is Harjo et al v. Pro Football, Inc. Names of the co-petitioners often are left out of others' accounts of our seven years of litigation. They are: Raymond D. Apodaca (Ysleta del Sur); Manley A. Begay, Jr., Ph.D. (Navajo); Vine Deloria, Jr., Esq. (Standing Rock Sioux); Norbert S. Hill, Jr. (Oneida); William A. Means, Jr. (Oglala Lakota); and Mateo Romero (Cochiti).

Cheyennes say to choose your friends as you would choose people to take into battle-people of courage, loyalty, honor, honesty, strategy, humor -- ones who stand their ground and strive for peace. We all are spiritual people. One is a doctor, one is a lawyer, another is a former Pueblo governor. We write, make art and educate.

Our opponents call us "militants." They just don't get it. Name-calling is what the whole big deal is about, and is the very basis for the judges' decision.

We deal with the important issues of our time, because we can and must, and this is one of them. Native children have good names and they suffer from this hateful, hurtful one. It helps them to know that their elders are doing something about it, that our views are validated in the justice system and by myriad fair-minded people.

Aho.