{"id":53739,"date":"2013-02-07T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T17:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=53739"},"modified":"2013-10-31T04:33:45","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T09:33:45","slug":"interest-convergence-fsu-and-the-seminole-tribe-of-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/02\/07\/interest-convergence-fsu-and-the-seminole-tribe-of-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Interest Convergence, FSU, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Native Appropriations<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Florida State has been the\u00a0\u201cSeminoles\u201d since 1947<\/a>, and have had a \u201crelationship\u201d with the Seminole Tribe of Florida for many years, but it was solidified more recently. In 2005, the\u00a0NCAA passed a resolution<\/a>, calling Native American Mascots \u201chostile and abusive,\u201d and prohibiting schools with these mascots from hosting post-season events. The Seminole Tribe of Florida then officially gave their permission to use\u00a0Osceola<\/a>\u00a0as the mascot,\u00a0letting FSU get a waiver from the NCAA rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclaimer, and a big one — I am not Seminole, and I don\u2019t want to speak for the tribe. I am offering my interpretation and perspective, but it\u2019s just mine. I am going to be up front and say that I don\u2019t agree with the choice to give the university permission to mock Native culture (see\u00a0the billboard and video I posted earlier<\/a>), and I\u00a0don\u2019t find a \u201cstoic\u201d dude in a wig and redface throwing a flaming spear<\/a>\u201chonoring\u201d (see photo above), and I definitely don\u2019t think that the\u00a0\u201cwar chant\u201d<\/a>\u00a0is respectful in any way. In fact I find it quite \u201chostile and abusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

I do want to put the decision of the tribe into context, however. From what I understand, prior to the formalized relationship with the tribe in the 1970\u2032s, the image of the university was not Osceola (who is\u00a0a real person,<\/a>\u00a0in case you didn\u2019t know. Though the image is the profile of a white faculty member), but a stereotypical mis-mash named \u201cSammy Seminole<\/a>\u201d who was accompanied by \u201cChief Fullabull,\u201d both of whom wore cartoonish and stereotypical outfits and clowned around at games. Trying to be more \u201csensitive\u201d they changed \u201cFullabull\u201d to \u201cChief Wampumstompum.\u201d I\u2019m not kidding. Osceola and Renegade (the horse) were introduced in the late 70\u2032s.<\/p>\n

So, by entering into a relationship with the university, the mascot now represents an actual Seminole figure, and wears (close to) traditional Seminole regalia, made by tribal members. In addition to control and \u201ccollaboration\u201d over how the image is used and portrayed, I\u2019ve heard the tribe gets a cut of the\u00a0merchandising profits, which I\u2019m sure is no small amount of money. The president of the university also established full\u00a0scholarships for Seminole students\u00a0<\/a>(though only 8 Seminole students have graduated in the history of the school), a Seminole color guard brings in the flag at commencement, and the tribe was recently\u00a0honored at homecoming<\/a>. The Seminole of FL are also one of the most successful gaming tribes in the US, and my personal opinion is that keeping the state happy on the FSU front can only be good for relations around gaming contracts.<\/p>\n

In summary, while the mascot is far from being respectful in my opinion, at least the tribe is gaining both economic and social benefits from engaging in this relationship. At least, at the games, as the student section is tomahawk chopping and yelling \u201cscalp \u2018em\u201d, they can look down at the field and see a\u00a0real\u00a0<\/em>Seminole every once and awhile to counter the image of Osceola. But is it perfect? Of course not. In a lot of ways it is similar to Derrick Bell\u2019s theory of Interest Convergence — the idea that whites will only consent to racial progress when it benefits them directly — but turned around. The tribe is consenting to this, because they benefit directly. The interests of the two parties converge.<\/p>\n

But the hard thing about FSU is that it\u00a0always\u00a0<\/em>gives fodder to the mascot defenders. \u201cBut the Seminole approve of Florida State! \u00a0They don\u2019t care!\u201d Hopefully I\u2019ve made a bit of a case as to why they\u2019ve consented to have their image used, but I also want to point out that just because one faction of a marginalized group believes one thing, it doesn\u2019t mean that everyone feels that way. Can you imagine if we expected all white folks to feel the same about a controversial issue\u2026 like gun control, for example? Not gonna happen. I also think that it ties back into the\u00a0dilemma I\u2019ve brought up again and again — is it better to be completely invisible as Native people, or be misrepresented? In the case of the Seminole tribe of Florida, they took the step to at least\u00a0try\u00a0<\/em>and gain some control and power over how their people and community are represented.<\/p>\n

For more, check out this awesome resource pulled together by Rob Schmidt of\u00a0Blue Corn Comics<\/a>\/Newspaper Rock<\/a>\u00a0—\u00a0offers more history, counter-arguments, quotes from news articles and Native scholars, and more:\u00a0Why FSU\u2019s Seminoles aren\u2019t ok<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Adrienne Keene is a Cherokee doctoral candidate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, where she studies access to higher education for Native students. \u00a0She blogs about cultural appropriation at\u00a0Native Appropriations<\/a>. \u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Native Appropriations. Florida State has been the\u00a0\u201cSeminoles\u201d since 1947, and have had a \u201crelationship\u201d with the Seminole Tribe of Florida for many years, but it was solidified more recently. In 2005, the\u00a0NCAA passed a resolution, calling Native American Mascots \u201chostile and abusive,\u201d and prohibiting schools with these mascots from hosting post-season events. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,283,285,1758,293,108],"class_list":["post-53739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-american-indiansaboriginals","tag-social-construction","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53739"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58050,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53739\/revisions\/58050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}