s/t to Joe Paisley. I know it’s a little old but I have yet to see it posted anywhere else –
David Ramsey from the
Colorado Springs Gazette has a piece on UND retiring the
Fighting Sioux nickname, if you’re not familiar with Ramsey he’s a self-professed anti-Fighting Sioux nickname person – but he is also a pretty good guy as well.
David Ramsey, The Gazette --- Those who cling to the Fighting Sioux moniker have misdirected their devotion. The moniker supporters I’ve talked with are fiercely devoted to UND’s hockey team. And I must say this: UND hockey fans are among the best in college sports, right up there with Kentucky basketball fans and Alabama football fans.
But a change in the images of UND sports will do nothing, really, to alter the hockey program.
I’m a graduate of Syracuse. For decades, white guys dressed up as the Saltine Warrior, a repulsive Native American caricature. These white guys whooped and danced on the sidelines of football games while embarrassing themselves and the university.
The Saltine Warrior was dismissed in 1977, when a brave and wise chancellor named Melvin Eggers listened to the protests of local Native Americans. There was, as you might expect, a massive outcry. Longtime fans promised to boycott games. Old-timers vowed to embrace the Warrior forever.
Forever did not last long.
When I arrived in Syracuse in 1985, the Saltine Warrior was a distant memory of less-enlightened times, a symbol that did not belong in modern-day reality. And Syracuse, where Stephen Crane, William Safire, Frank Langella, Lou Reed and Vanessa Williams studied, is doing just fine without him, thank you.
Here is a perfect link on how to write a gamer/article without mentioning the Fighting Sioux nick name.
