Sanitizing Mascot Language

Hanh mitakuyapi / Hello my relatives. We're currently battling once again over mascotting in North Dakota, where the House Majority Leader has introduced a bill to - in it's words - "force the University of North Dakota to retain the 'fighting sioux' nickname and logo'. Among other actions. Now that the word 'mascot' has come to be known for its toxicity, bigots and other ignorant people have gone to the old 'divide and conquer' strategy to try to muck up the view of 'what's really going on here' by using the phrase 'nickname and logo'. Sounds much better than 'mascot', doesn't it? But it's the same song on a different day, in reality.

I always hope that people in positions such as Majority Leader will behave in more dignified ways than to promote mascotting, but once again, I am much disappointed.

Still, after fighting through the House, where the Chair of the ND House Education Committee was obviously biased in favor of this stupid bill, and where it passed by something like 65 - 28, we have gotten a "Do Not Pass" recommendation from the Senate Education Committee. Now our prayer is that the full Senate will concur when it votes on this bill tomorrow.

I plan to be there to hear the floor debate and see what kind of ludicrous arguments may be made for spending at least $1 million - not to find a more suitable mascot for the UND & take it out of the dark ages HB1263 would shove it further into - but to try to bring a lawsuit to 'force' the UND to retain living people & our living cultures as pets &/or cartoons - the definition of 'mascot' in the OED. A repeat of a lawsuit which was dismissed by the ND Supreme Court 'with prejudice', we have been told; and which the ND Attorney General says is UnConstitutional!

I never fail to be amazed by the depths to which bigots will stoop to try to retain the status quo. We got the Civil Rights Act passed in what, the 1970s? for blacks.. and it was later extended to cover women and Hispanics, without much question. Yet for us IndigenUs People of this Turtle Island, there continues to be effort on effort made to treat us as mindless and valueless - except when it comes to making money from our images. Dis-gust-ing!

I proposed several respectful alternatives to HB1263, including hoghouse the bill (scrap the original wording) & replace it with: with the blessing of the involved tribes, put the beautiful artwork on the state's website & letterheads - the state is named for my People, after all; and on the 'Pride of Dakota' labels that go on thousands of products shipped through that program - retaining the words "Pride of Dakota" of course; and put the beautiful artwork on license plates. This last suggestion came from a friend who is a German-from-Russia, & everyone I've asked about it has liked this idea as well as the previous 2. Said "it's logical!" "it's common sense!"
Which probably means it won't go anywhere, in part because it came from me. Isn't it odd that a woman described by the current governor as being "nothing! nobody! She has no money, no votes, no power!" can have such impact? Duwahleh! Mongye.

Well, let's pray on that tomorrow's vote kills HB1263 once and for all, and the state of North Dakota can hold its collective head up high for this nod to human dignity - instead of continuing as it currently is & has been for far too long. Mitakuye oiasin.