alright here’s the deal: obviously getting rid of Patrick Kane would be net good for the hockey community as a whole but that in no way would redeem the blackhawks even little bit. I get how if you’re white or non-native in general you could personally see how that would make you feel less bad but I got some news for you!!! They’re still a racist organization and it wouldn’t be totally chill to like them even if they dropped their rapist!!!
Did you know that there are NO federally recognized reservations in illinois despite the fact that one of the largest groups of indigenous people lived there pre european contact? Did you know that Illinois is an algonquin word? Did you know that most of the state’s highway system was built from native trade routes and trails? Did you know that the state’s agriculture system was built up from land already cultivated from native farmers?
Did you know that the illinois natives were forced off of their land? Did you know chicago probably would not exist as we know it if it hadn’t been for the hard work and progress the natives there made? The work that was stolen from them? The trail of tears passed through illinois. The blackhawk war to reclaim land that had been stolen took part in northern illinois. The entire state of illinois is soaked with native blood.
And how do we memorialize this?
The funny thing is that war bonnets belonged to the plains indians and Black Hawk was a woodland indian. The team can pretend that it’s “honoring” Black Hawk all the want, but it’s an empty lie as long as that racist caricature is worn on those jerseys. The team isn’t even named after Black Hawk himself, it’s named after a US infantry division that was named after Black Hawk.
lets also compare what the actual Black Hawk looked like versus the logo:
This wasn’t made to honor an individual, it’s a generic caricature. Don’t even get me started on how the US decides “good” indians from”bad” indians in history. Which individuals were ~noble worthy adversaries and which ones were villains that needed to be exterminated.
“But Dana! the Black Hawks aren’t as bad as say the Redskins or the Inidians!” like you’re theoretically correct that the blackhawks are doing the bare minimum of not using slurs as their team names but let me lay something on you:
This shit actively and continually hurts us. It hurts native children who already start off disadvantaged in this world. It hurts all of us when no one takes us fucking seriously because our cultures and our sacred traditions are reduced to spot rituals for profit. It doesn’t matter if the blackhawks are “less racist” than other teams. Racism is racism, especially on this scale especially when the franchise makes an astronomical amount of profit on the sale of their merchandise.
So yes, I’m sure if you aren’t native it’s easy to say “well if they fired this one player, it wouldn’t be so bad!” I’m sure most of hockey tumblr agrees with that statement! But you’re wrong and this is why. The blackhawks org is a product of a culture of murder and rape a theft and it’s a reminder to all of us native people of the abuse of our people.
This isn’t about being ~woke~ since I know so many of you are chomping at the bit to be hawks fans now that strome is over there. This is about native folks literally begging you to have some empathy for us and our centuries worth of trauma. Don’t just performatively hate the blackhawks because you’re supposed to, listen to us and really consider the implications. Consider that the org won’t even so much as change their logo, which is like the absolute bare minimum they could do. Think about WHY they won’t do that. Think about how this franchise profits off our our dehumination and stop minimizing that.
Listen im super white so i dont really feel confident talking too much about this since i dont know what racism is like. But native americans and the whole history about the us is touchy as Hell, mostly because its an ongoing thing, STILL. They never had any form of justice and then people go around using names like Washington redskins and Cleveland indians etc, making it ’cool’ and i guess whitewashing it – without recognizing any of the history or issues in place. If anyone wants to go off please do because im really not educated enough in this subject (im not even american)
I AM american, but also a White, so if anyone feels like I’m talking out of place here on Native issues pls let me know!!
The logo itself is Racist and not just “insensitive” because to use a human being (especially a Native person in their ceremonial clothing) as a logo is to dehumanize them. Essentially you’re turning a real life group of people into a mascot, a THING, and disrespecting not only them but their culture and traditions.
In the US especially this is a Big Problem, as the disrespect for Native People has been a huge problem for as long as we white people have been here stealing land that wasn’t ours and being huge dicks to people who were here first. And there has never been any sort of move by the government or by white people in general to fix any of the shit we fucked up in the years since we arrived. (And no Reservations don’t count, you can’t take a People from their land, shove them all into a tiny percentage of what they once had, offer no resources or help, and call it a day)
Anyway the Blkhwks logo is racist as hell, and no person, Native or otherwise, should be dehumanized and used as a mascot or logo for any White People thing.
As a Native American, I’m going to agree with the above and also add: using us in these caricature forms also promotes prejudice and stereotyping that is incredibly harmful to us as a people.
Basically, the B-Hawks, R*dskins, Indi*ns, can all get fucked with their racist logos (and names, for the latter two). There are other alternatives, and ignoring our protests about it only further proves that they don’t actually understand OR care about the problem.
Also to add, but Indi*ns fans don’t just have the logo. They dress up as the logo.
The Br*ves do a tomahawk chop motions to a made up native sounding chant. It’s really gross.
I was gonna say to be fair I hadn’t seen H*wks fans do this but I literally just googled it. Oh also I should say, I didn’t have to google like “h*wks fans being racist” this literally just came up when I googled h*wks fans.
The problem is we’re not just taking the logos and using them as gross racist caricatures, which is pretty nasty in and of itself, but we’re also taking and belittling all of these aspects as a part of sports culture to cheer on teams, and that’s pretty disgusting too. Like there are literally people up there in red face to support their team, and we are using significant items like the tomahawk or a headdress to dress up to support the team.
Anyways yeah the entire logo thing is concretely connected to a massive amount of anti-native racism in sports.
the nhl: we want to attract more women to the games, get them excited about hockey
also the nhl: names Patrick Kane, accused multiple times of sexual assault and all round terrible human being, one of their all time greatest players
Steel Phoenix Studios 