To Seattle Native Americans, Redskins Are the Shame of the Game

The teens do not consider themselves activists or leftists or social engineers; some are barely old enough to wear makeup and hold jobs. But they have grown up with images of white kids in war paint patting their mouths, making a "woo-woo" sound at high school basketball games. At West Seattle High School four years ago, Joe and three girlfriends from the Native American Club decided to fight an 85-year-old tradition: the use of the Indian nickname and mascot at their school.

The girls got 650 faculty, students and members of the community to sign their petition to abolish the nickname. At 15 years old, she took the microphone in front of the Seattle School Board in the spring of 2002. "No PowerPoints or presentation material; it just came from our hearts," Joe said. "We basically said it's not okay for us to be depicted in that way."

In July 2002, the Seattle School Board abolished the use of all Indian nicknames in its public schools. The ruling was upheld in 2003 by a King County Superior Court judge.

Four girls, convincing an entire school board in an American metropolis to change.

"So you wonder, 'Why can't a team in the nation's capital do the same?' " Joe said. "Do they just not see that it's wrong?"

The kids of Iwasil said they would like to meet with Daniel Snyder, the owner who has remained steadfast in his desire not to change the name of Washington's NFL team.

"It would be a challenge to get through to someone who already has their mind-set," Joe said. "But if he could feel just a small glimmer of what it would be like to live in the experience of having your people portrayed as a mascot, at least he would know. At least he couldn't act like he didn't know anymore."

Snyder's spokesman, Karl Swanson, did not return a phone call or respond to an e-mail request for comment.

It's not just the kids who feel this way.

Charlene Teters, who grew up in the Spokane Nation east of Seattle, was a graduate student at the University of Illinois. She launched a national campaign to do away with Chief Illiniwek, the school's longtime mascot.

Teters was the main character in a documentary titled "In Whose Honor," which featured a particularly disturbing scene. In front of RFK Stadium in 1991, Teters confronts Chief Zee, aka Zema Williams, an aging Washingtonian who has dressed up in Indian garb for the past three decades, replete with war bonnet. Local fans probably know of Williams, who happens to be black. He is usually parading around FedEx Field during home games. He was at the Cowboys' game in Dallas in September, congratulating Santana Moss in the end zone after a touchdown.

In the documentary, Teters asks Williams: "How would you like it if I put on blackface? Would that be okay?" Williams can't answer her, except to say he has no problem with "her kin." The conversation grows uglier until Williams finally walks away, unable to find a good argument in his defense. Teters is weeping at the end, crushed she cannot get through to her African American brother.

"It was one of the few times I lost it," she said by telephone earlier this week from Pomona, Calif., where she is serving as an endowed chair of interdisciplinary knowledge at Cal Poly Pomona. "He just didn't get it.

"I cannot speak for the whole Spokane Nation in this matter, but I'm definitely not honored by that team coming to my home state," she added. "It insults my intelligence to say this honors me."