Oh, and before you come back with more claims that FSU is not misleading anyone. Here is a paragraph from their three page response to the NCAA:
Yes, it is with the full knowledge of the leadership of both, but it’s certainly not with the approval of both.
It doesn’t say approval. What’s your beef with this one? How is it misleading?
I assume you have a cite to show that the majority of Seminoles in this country expressed this to their representatives? Or are you still assuming something you don’t know for a fact, as you said in post #95
Pretty strange thing to assume, given that zamboniracer gave numbers in post #19 that directly contradict your assumption.
Most people prolly don’t know this, but the Seminole Nation is made up of people forcibly relocated by the US Gov’t after the second Seminole War. The US fought three wars against the Seminoles, and never beat them. IMO, therefore, the Seminoles of Florida have at least as great a claim to the name as the people in Oklahoma. Especially since, until those people moved or were moved (some did relocate voluntarily) there were only Seminoles in Florida.
In fact, damn near everyone uses the term Seminole to mean “Florida Seminole”.
This encyclopedia does. Wikipedia does. The Carl Vinson Institue at the University of Georgia does. In fact, if you type “Seminole Indians” into Google, almost every entry is about Seminoles in Florida. If anything, the tribe in Florida is “the Seminole Indians” while those in Oklahoma are “the Seminole who were relocated”.
But I digress. IMO, most of your post is just PC-ridiculous. There is no attempt to deceive, and FSU goes to great pains to show that they are aligned with the Seminole Tribe, not the Seminole Nation. It appears that your beef is that Florida State University does not say “Florida” every time they say “Seminole”; is that correct?
Please explain how the phrase “Florida State Seminoles”, as the school team is commonly referred to in sports broadcasts and literature, does not accomplish this task. Please explain how anyone referring to the Florida State University team as the “Seminoles” is misleading.
Like I said, if a school in a state that was the aboriginal home of the Seminole Indians used the term, I might see your point. But Florida is where all Seminoles came from.
The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is much larger than the Florida tribe. I’ll provide cites if you truly don’t believe this, but it’s common knowledge.
Actually, I seem to know a lot more about this, for a fact, than you do, and zamboniracer’s site was of all Indians, not Seminoles specifically. Are you even familiar with Seminole history, and how the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma came to be? These are not two groups with separate histories, as all of them were once residents of Florida, and were the same people. Are you even aware of what the Seminoles are (hint, there were no indigenous people known as Seminoles anywhere in the country when Columbus came)? The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, who lived happily in Florida until they were forced out by the government, are not happy with FSU’s usage of the name.
The government forcibly relocated them away from Florida, not to Florida. They had variously migrated or run away from other parts of the country, and are actually made up of various tribes and even slaves.
Technically, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma are Florida Seminoles. They don’t like the usage of their name.
All are the same people, which is a mixture of various tribes and former slaves, as I noted above. The fact that they were forcibly relocated does not remove their rights to the name, nor discount their dislike of its use by FSU.
Once again, both groups are the same damned thing. The Seminoles were forcibly moved to Oklahoma. Some hid and were able to avoid that fate. Does the fact that the ones in Oklahoma were not able to hide mean they no longer have a right to be offended?
My beef is with the fact that the school pretends that the Seminole people are perfectly fine with their usage of the name, and that everyone should therefore back off. They rely on the fact that a lot of people aren’t familiar with the history of the Seminole people, and also the fact that the average person is not aware of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, and their take on this.
And the majority of the Seminoles who came from Florida don’t want FSU to use the name.
You can certainly take the stance that the Seminoles taking offense are being PC, but you can’t deny that a large number of Seminoles do take offense. That’s what FSU is attempting to do.
If you wish to maintain that I don’t know what I’m talking about, let’s be perfectly clear. I grew up in Oklahoma, have forgotten more about the Trail of Tears than you’ll ever know, and still don’t actually have an opinion one way or the other about FSU’s usage of the name, as it’s not an issue I really care about. I’m simply stating that FSU is misleading people, the NCAA knows it, and we’ll find out how it pans out (I’m guessing not good for FSU).
Yep, it’s roughly 3 times as many people in OK as in FL.
Yes, I am aware of how the SNoO came to be. See, a brief description is right there in the post you’re quoting from. Yes, I know that the Seminoles were actually a number of tribes who banded together.
Yeah, that’s what I said.
Yep. The word seminole actually means “separatist” or “runaway”.
I respectfully disagree with you on this point, and have seen nothing to back up the assertion. The school constantly talks about the Seminole Tribe of Florida. It’s only in the name of the sports teams that the single word is used, but even there it’s most commonly used with the words Florida State. When the word Seminole(s) is used alone, it’s in the context of “the Florida State” Seminoles.
Please save attempts to call me ignorant for other forums. Since you ask, sort of, I grew up in South Florida and spent quite a bit of my time in the Everglades and around the Seminoles and Miccosukee. I even studied anthropology in college, and participated in digs of Seminole, Miccosukee, and Creek sites, and Spanish mission sites established near Native American centers. Two of my best friends from college were married by the chief of the Miccosukee. I am not as ignorant as you wish to believe.
Well, thanks for clarifying that at last. I think your off-base in deciding that FSU is misleading people. I just don’t see it in any of the press releases, or in the context of “Florida State Seminoles”. And I’m guessing that FSU will get to keep the name, no problem, although they may have to pony up some financial arrangements (money, scholarships, etc.) to the SNoO to get them to stop bitching, but that wouldn’t be a bad thing; whatever we can do to help more people get educated is fine by me. I think the only offense that SNoO is taking is that they don’t get anything out of the deal.
I think this bit, more than anything else in this thread, is what separates my view of this issue from what appears to be the majority. I lived in Florida for four years and not once the entire time I was there did I ever come across anything resembling the rampant anti-Indian racsim that still exists in Minnesota. And that includes the anti-Cuban sentiment in Dade County.
You’ve heard the phrase “The only good Indian is a dead Indian”, right? Heard it on PBS specials or read it in history books? Rednecks up here say it - and mean it.
A few years ago the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe sued the US for not upholding a last treaty and won. I’m fuzzy on the details (someone with the mad Google sk1llz can find the ruling) but it essentially said that state DNR laws in relation to fishing and hunting rules and limits did not apply on reservations. This was a fair and legal ruling. Within a year two things happened:
The next fall, thousands of fish were left to rot on the shores of Mille Lacs, and hundreds of deer were shot and left to rot in the forests of the reservation. All of those fucking Indians were exercising their treaty rights and shooting as many deer and netting as much fish as they possibly could, just because the fucking government said they could. No one had any proof, of course, nor pictures, nor was there any investigation. The DNR covered it up, you see. Fucking government, always on the side of the fucking red niggers.
Carp is (from what I understand, and I’m willing to be corrected) a Japanese delicacy. At the very least they like it a whole lot. Minnesota fisherman? Not so much - it’s considered bait fish. A local lake (Little Rock, for those keeping score at home) was full of carp and a Japanese company was contracted to net carp. The local rednecks didn’t know about the “Japanese” part, of course. They just saw non-white people working nets on the lake, so late one night they went out and cut the nets. The local paper didn’t report any of this, of course; they only said the Japanese firm was pulling out of the six-figure deal for production difficulties. The only reason I know about “the rest of the story” is because my sister was a bar maid at the time and heard the local rednecks bragging about cutting the nets the night they did it - she didn’t put 2 and 2 together until after the local paper published that snippet.
Here’s a .pdf map. See that bg stretch of land running from AZ north to MT and east to MN where all the colors are? That’s anti-Indian territory.
I know that anecdotes don’t equal data, but I’m telling you: In some places the Indian Wars aren’t over. The Seminoles in Florida may be regarded as a curiosity, but I can guarantee you that First Nations people are still thought of as different, or subhuman, or less-than-white in much of this country.
As far as the NCAA rule re Indian names goes, I think the NCAA governing board is a bunch of hypocrites. I’m pretty sure that when General Motors’ Pontiac division comes to them and asks to buy a big chunk of advertising time during the NCAA tournament that they’ll be more than happy to sell it to them.
“Pontiac” is an Indian name, you know.
Another update:
The traditional “Red River Shootout” which is what the yearly Texas/OU game was known as had it’s named change to the “Red River Rivalry”. Apparently ‘shootout’ wasn’t PC enough and inspired gun violence.
That’s almost as ridiculous as the Washington Bullets changing their name to the Wizards. Almost.
Actually, Pontiac is the mangled name of a specific Indian, not an entire tribe, and Pontiac salesman don’t do a “tomahawk chop”, wear Indian religious regalia, and have cheers named “massacre”, but otherwise, you have a point.
Cite? It’s been perfectly acceptable to call it either a rivalry or a shootout, and has been for years.
It just happened yesterday, when SBC bought the sponsorship rights and officially changed it. I heard on local sportsradio (KTCK-AM, the Ticket), but let me see if I can find something on-line.
SBC has owned the sponsorship rights since 2000, but I did find what you were talking about, although it doesn’t appear to have happened for “PC” reasons.
I’ll be more than happy to look at any cite that makes the claim you made.
Can’t find anything on-line about it, honestly not sure why as it was a pretty big story on the radio yesterday. Everything I find in searches comes back with old articles about the game over the past few years. So I guess, scratch that.
But I did find this funny quote:
WOOT! 
Heh.
Open a can of worms much, NCAA?
I thought the whole mess was PC gone amok until I read this. It definitely gave me something to think about.
I still don’t get why ‘warriors’ offends anyone. Are native Americans the only warriors in the world?
In 1900, the Cleveland Spiders (a blatent insult to all arachnids) changed their name to Indians to honor Louis Sockalexis, the first American Indian to play major league baseball. So the nickname Indians was originally very reverential (although I do agree with you about the Chief Wahoo logo).
My question is where does it all end? Should German-Americans be insulted by teams named the Vandals? Should Scottish-Americans be insulted by teams named the Highlanders? Should Greek-Americans be insulted by teams named the Spartans? Should Asia Minor-Americans be insulted by teams named the Trojans? Should Animal-Americans be insulted by teams named the Huskies?
From here (also source of the quotes above):