Madhavi Rampersaud
Ward Churchill’s excerpt entitled “Let’s Spread the ‘Fun’ Around” focuses on the controversies regarding sport teams and their stereotypical names. Throughout history, American Indians were referred to as “savages” and “Indians”. These offensive names have stuck with this group of people and have created a certain view of them in society today. As many of us know, the American Indian population is not as strong as it once was years ago. There are still some of them living within reservations throughout the United States.
Somehow, people in our society today have forgotten that these people are still human beings and ought to be treated with respect. According to Churchill, sport teams emphasize the culture of this group of people through exaggerated performances and references. For example, there are sports teams like the Washington “Redskins” and the Lamar (Colorado) “Savages”. Churchill also mentions the fact that these sports teams have adopted mascots to represent the names of their team. In addition, gestures and costumes have been deemed amusing. Churchill’s argument in this excerpt is that situations like this are defaming the reputation of American Indians. It is offensive and should not be encouraged.
I personally agree with Ward Churchill on his perspective. However, I think he gets carried away with his argument. He says that if Americans feel that this is just a joke and is all in fun, then we should not leave other races out of it all. He insists on including African Americans and Hispanics into the scenario. The way I see it, the “team names” he decided to create are outright offensive. They consist of offensive terms made to dehumanize African Americans and Hispanics, such as “Niggers” and “Spics”. These terms are derogatory to people. I think that even though Churchill he encourages defending the American Indians, he went overboard.
I do not think that sports teams come up with their team names just to offend the American Indian population. When they call themselves “savages” or “chiefs”, it is more of an aspect of pride. They want to show that they are strong leaders who can become championships. Perhaps the term “savages” is used to describe the raw and brutal plays that are incorporated into sports like football. It is not necessarily shouting out American Indian people as animals or such. In addition, the costumes and performances are just all in good fun. In a way, the sport team players are a family with their own culture, even if the culture is based on sport. Though this article was very interesting and insightful, it was too extreme.
**The picture that I am including with this blog is just to show a similar idea of what Churchill was discussing in his article. I do hope it does not offend anyone. The title of my blog was used to invoke sarcasm as well, so I just wanted to let everyone know that. I personally found the image I chose to be a good example of the idea of racism and discrimination. You can scroll down the linked page to see the comic that I choose. I am not too sure about the artist of this comic, supposedly his name is Rob. Whoever he is though, I definitely given him credit for this. I do not consider this my work in any way.
I definitely think we can use some of the rhetorical techniques that Churchill used in our own writing. For example, the use of sarcasm was very interesting in this piece. It’s one of the things I like most about this article. If we write about something that relates to race like this article does that we can use sarcasm to emphasize our arguments. Churchill goes on to say “okay if we can just call these teams certain names just for fun then why not do the same for others? We shouldn’t leave anyone out of all the fun.” I think the image that I used portrays that idea quite well. If an image can portray something so strong then our writing can definitely do that as well. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so maybe we should just use those words and portray them in our writing 🙂
Thanks, Madhavi! This is a very thoughtful response. Do you think there is a way that students in our class could incorporate some of the rhetorical techniques Churchill used in this essay in their own writing? What would those techniques be?