Chief Illiniwek

As an Ohio resident, thirty minutes outside Cleveland and a girlfriend of a huge baseball fan, I have been attending Cleveland Indians baseball games at Jacobs’s field since I was a young girl. Prior to watching the movie Chief Illiniwek, I never realized how the name Cleveland Indians could be offensive. Once watching the movie, I now question whether or not I will be attending baseball games with my boyfriend in the spring.

Once speaking to my boyfriend about the movie, he mentioned how often times he has seen Native American protestors standing outside the stadium with signs about the connotation of the team’s name being offensive to their heritage. How could I have been so blind not to have seen them? The movie showed me how Native Americans feel about being affiliated with a comedic character of their traditional culture such University of Illinois "Chiefs". Although the Cleveland Indian is a cartoon character, I can see how I may take offense if a sport team decided to make their team mascot a cartoon character of a preppy, Caucasian woman in her twenties. How would feel if a sports team made a mascot cartoon character of you?

Insider/Outsider Debate

Before taking this class I had never heard about an author being an insider or an outsider pertaining to the topic they are writing about. As this class is a diverse literature course, I realized the importance of insider/outsider author debate. Although an author may not be “insider” inadvertently, they are labeled as an outsider. Is the line between an insider and outsider author that clear? Can an “insider” be more of an outsider in their own culture than perhaps an labeled outsider? Or can an “outsider” be more of an insider to a culture other than their own? Based on ones personal experiences with any culture (even their own) can cause stereotypes or biased opinions. One may be part of a culture based on their experiences in which they identify themselves with, ultimately causing them to reflect in a certain way. The question is if those experiences are reflected accurately in written form.