Change.org - Racist mascot

Two years ago, the American Indian Center of Chicago ended a partnership with the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team. Why? Because the team promotes harmful stereotypes of Native Americans with their mascot. Two years have passed and the team still uses the same mascot. Petition starter Seth, a Native American author and activist, is now asking the team to stop using a harmful stereotype for a mascot. “We are not your mascot and it is time for a change,” Seth writes. Sign to urge the Chicago Blackhawks to change their mascot. Change the Chief Blackhawk Mascot - Chicago Blackhawks 488 have signed Seth Thomas Sutton’s petition. Let’s get to 500!

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The use of any kind of derogatory Indigenous imagery for sports mascots is seen by most in the Indigenous community as a way of sidestepping the acknowledgment of responsibility of colonization by the White American public. To this point, in 2019, the American Indian Center of Chicago (AIC) ended an eight-year partnership with the Chicago Blackhawks Foundation, whose collaborative purpose was to educate the public on Indigenous issues. The AIC cited the Blackhawks organization’s continued perpetuation of harmful stereotypes as the main reason for the split. In its public statement the AIC wrote: "[the] AIC will have no professional ties with the Blackhawks or any other organization that perpetuates harmful stereotypes. We see this as necessary to sustain a safe, welcoming environment for members of our community as well as protecting our cultural identity and traditions." The problematics of racialized Indigenous tropes have been the topic of social activism for decades. Yet today, there is still resistance to acknowledging that sports mascots depicting harmful Indigenous stereotypes are a continuation of racialized, colonial violence. Indigenous stereotypes work to promote, justify, and normalize inequity, reifying notions of presumed biological difference. These illusionary concepts of the American racial/ethnic hierarchy simultaneously amplify and negatively impact contemporary Indigenous concepts of identity. Continuing to use these harmful images, dominant society engages in a practice of adherence to colonial ideologies, which in turn, further normalizes the oppressive power structures that are in place to both support and to be supported by Indigenous subjugation.  In short - the stereotype of Chief Blackhawk in no way resembles the factual, historical person and the mascot is used by dominant White society as a badge of solidarity and communal spirit.  We are NOT your mascot - and it is TIME for a CHANGE!

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