Let me bring up the definition of respect: admire (someone or something) deeply, as a result of their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

So, if they have them as their mascots they should be honoring their abilities, qualities, and achievements. They don't seem to be respecting them very well. They might be doing their ¨dance¨ which the school or place probably made up. The stuff they wear is what they think the tribe may wear, but it's mainly representative of just about every Native American culture in their opinion. If they were respecting the tribes, they would have the tribes teach them about their culture so the students would be able to actually respect them. Just putting them as their mascot and doing a little dance at a game doesn't make it respect.

If Native Americans were not offended then this argument would not be going on.

Most of the people that are offended could still be in the tribe, or have a high percentage of their descendants being that culture... and when some places just use it as their mascot and screw up everything about the culture in their way or representing their ¨respect¨ for the people. The point that we are trying to make is that even though people think they respect them because it's their mascot, they have to first realize that they can't be using names that can be disrespectful. Second off, they have to know a lot about the tribe to represent them without mocking them. In the long run, it really does offend some people. They need to fix their stuff. And by the way, we are talking more about Native Americans then African American tribes.

Cartoon-ish characters that represent a mascot can offend people... it shows a bad perspective of how the actual tribe was. And kids don't get as easily offended by the mascots because they don't know any better yet. Some kids may be offended, who knows.

Just because the tribe the team is named after supported it, it doesn't mean other people can't find it offensive. "American Indian Mascots and logos promote negative stereotypes." Barbara Munson, a member of the Oneida Tribe said this in the article "Honor or Insult?" She was simply offended by the Washington Redskins's logo and name and just because she doesn't live in Washington doesn't mean she can't be offended by it.

If you think that was my claim, then no, it was just support for my side to be stronger :)

They still misrepresent the ethnic group and can totally end up screwing up representing them the right way. Teams generally wear stereotypical clothing and items that they believed that the group used, but could be totally wrong. Even if they don't try to be stereotypical towards groups, they are because they have no knowledge of what they are actually like.

But that's not necessarily how they are actually like. That's how people think they are like, but they could be totally different. Maybe the dances are being done wrong and people find that offensive because they don't have any idea about the culture their team represents. The point I'm trying to make is the fact that the teams just use the mascots, and even if they're trying to "respect" them, they generally use stereotypical representations of the ethnic group and they could be totally misrepresenting them.

Mascots can't be offended, but mascots can offend people. People don't really acknowledge all of the hardships their people have had to go through in the past. They generally have people just wearing the costumes, but that doesn't make it right.

To add onto that, it also gets people used to the names that are "slang" terms for the ethnic group. They then use those names and someone could find it offensive if they hear it.

Mascots can in fact be offensive. According to "Native American Mascots Devalues Culture," Abel Cooper brought his daughter to a football game and the team was a native american representative team. They started wearing things that people have no idea on what they represent and in a way were mocking native american culture.

I think that cultural mascots are bad because they can promote negative stereotypes. Some teams like the Washington Redskins use names that can offend people from that cultural group (native americans). It doesn't help either, because people think that those things are just used for show when they can actually represent something behind the history of the group.