Imagining the Indian: De-Mascoting Native Americans in Sports

Factual America

15 Sep

Written By

America is famous for its sports franchises and rabid fans. However, there is one group of Americans for whom sports raise painful memories. These are the Native Americans.

At least some people are trying to put an end to racial stereotyping in US sports. And they have already succeeded in changing the name of the Washington Football Team.

Aviva Kempner is the award-winning director of successful docs like "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg". Kevin Blackistone is an award-winning national sports columnist. Together they are working on bringing Imagining the Indian to the screen.

We caught up recently with Aviva and Kevin at their homes in Washington DC.

"I've come to be opposed to all these names. The Not Your Mascot slogan is so true. People are not property of others, certainly when it is a culture that is being appropriated. We're supposed to be past that." - Kevin Blackistone

Time Stamps:

0:19 - Imagining the Indian trailer.
4:39 - Introducing our guests and today's topic.
8:40 - When and how Kevin Blackistone got the idea for this project.
11:09 - How Aviva Kempner got involved in the film.
15:15 - The events related to changing the names of sports teams since 2014.
19:58 - Why it has taken so long to take action against Native American mascoting.
25:21 - The role of Hollywood in sustaining stereotypes about Native Americans.
28:44 - The next step for this project after the name change to Washington Football Team.
32:23 - Why Kevin is opposed to all sports names containing Native American imagery.
38:41 - How sports mascoting affects Native Americans.
43:00 - How the Black Lives Matter movement is influencing the Not Your Mascot movement.
48:49 - How the pandemic has affected the filming.
51:14 - Whether there are any teams in the UK and elsewhere named after Native Americans.
1:01:29 - How the audience can connect with the filmmakers and the project.
1:04:58 - Why we are in the Golden Age of documentary film.

Resources:

Imagining the Indian Website
Follow the project on Twitter and Facebook
The Ciesla Foundation
Kevin Blackistone's sports commentary in The Washington Post
Alamo Pictures

Connect with Aviva Kempner:

Website
LinkedIn

Connect with Kevin Blackistone:

Twitter
Website

More from Factual America:

Transcript for Factual America Episode 28 - Imagining the Indian: De-Mascoting Native Americans in Sports

Aviva Kempner 0:00
Hi my name is Aviva Kempner, I'm a documentary filmmaker for the past 40 years and I live in Washington DC.

Kevin Blackinstone 0:07
My name is Kevin Blackistone, I'm a longtime sports columnist, now at The Washington Post. And I am the one of the co-producers on the film Imagining the Indian.

Music 0:19
I pitty the country, I pitty the state, and the mind of the man who thrives on hate...

Speaker 1 0:39
I went to public school to the nineth grade,, and I never learned a single thing that made me proud of my ancestors.

Speaker 2 0:47
There were times when I was ashamed of my skin color because I thought that we were just lower class and that's what I was taught.

Speaker 3 1:03
It's a slur, it's a racial, derogatory, disparaging slur. The Original Sin occurred the minute Europe touched native shores in North America and South America.

Speaker 4 1:15
There was the bounty paid on the scalps of men, women and children.

Unknown Speaker 1:20
In the 100 years that followed the arrival of Europeans, the population was reduced by over 90%.

Speaker 5 1:27
This legacy of genocide and the attitudes that sit behind it are in every native person's mind, as he or she, even in the 21st century looks at the name of sports teams, the denigration that is often reflected in the mascots associated with it. When you think of a brave warrior, do you think of somebody who is the director of a museum? Do you think of somebody who runs a tribe that runs multimillion dollar industries? Of course you go.

Speaker 2 2:01
The images that we do have are these fictionalized, stereotypes characters

Speaker 6 2:05
It dehumanizes human beings, mascots, stereotypes of Native people lower the self esteem of Native youth.

Speaker 7 2:14
It's as much of a slur as it would be to call the team, The Darkies. Now, how many Americans would allow that to stand?

Speaker 8 2:25
For me as a black person, if we don't want to be called niggers, then I can't be talking about no Redskins. And then the hypocrisy of being in the nation's capital Chocolate City, a city that's majority black, for us to woot on a team called the Redskins, it's very deep. psychologically.

Unknown Speaker 2:41
There has been a great deal of success in our movement to end these offensive images in sports.

Unknown Speaker 2:48
Across the country, you've seen high schools and colleges and other groups change the name. Just the NFL is a problem organization.

Unknown Speaker 2:56
You know, this country doesn't really do anything voluntarily in terms of granting human rights. It comes through movement. and movements educate people,

Unknown Speaker 3:05
I'm really hopeful with the gen Z's. I think the gen Z's are a generation that have grown up with a lot of social change. They're very open to social change.

Speaker 8 3:18
We may be your doctor, your lawyer, your professor.

When they're running the country in 20, 30 years, this generation and those like them, they are not going to allow these kinds of things to continue because they are American, they are different, open minded country, and there's just no room in that picture.

Speaker 7 3:40
Need the truthful history told about the strength and resilience in the people that exist and that are Still here, both non native and native.

Matthew 3:55
That is the trailer for the upcoming documentary Imagining the Indian and this is Factual America.

Unknown Speaker 4:04
Factual America is produced by Alamo Pictures, a production company specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for an international audience. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood, and every week we look at America through the lens of documentary filmmaking. By interviewing filmmakers and experts on the American experience. Subscribe to our mailing list, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Alamo Pictures, to be the first to hear about new productions, to find out where you can see our films and to connect with our team.

Matthew 4:39
America is famous for its sports franchises and rabid fans at both the pro and collegiate levels. That passion is one of America's most compelling attributes. However, there is one group of Americans for whom sports are a painful memory. On a daily basis, they are reminded of their people's tragic history. These are the original Americans, the Native Americans. Some people are trying to put an end to the last vestiges of racial stereotyping and denigration in US sports. Aviva Kempner is the award winning director of successful docs like The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and YooHoo Mrs Goldberg. Kevin Blackistone is an award winning national sports columnist. Together they are working to bring Imagining the Indian to the screen. We caught up recently with Aviva and Kevin from their homes in Washington DC. Aviva Kempner and Kevin Blackistone, welcome to Factual America. Aviva, how are things there in Washington DC?

Aviva Kempner 5:38
Well, we've had a little rain this past week, and luckily we have a good government in terms of, at least on the local level, about wearing masks and you know, I work at home so this is not as much of a problem. The challenge is shooting for the film, and there's a new baby in my family, I'm a grand-aunt. Luckily we're not shooting on Monday because we would have heard a baby for 13 hours.

Matthew 6:09
Well, we've had children we've had dogs make appearances. So, you know, more than welcome if if the grandbaby or grand niece or nephew What is it?

Aviva Kempner 6:20
Nephew.

Matthew 6:20
Grand nephew wants to make an appearance.

Aviva Kempner 6:23
Named Brady. Yeah, Kevin will appreciate it because I guess it's somewhat inspired by a football name.

Matthew 6:29
Is that right? Well, I think we're gonna have a sports heavy program. But Kevin, you're in Washington, well, you're in Silver Spring to be precise, I believe. How are things with you?

Kevin Blackinstone 6:38
Everything's fine. Unfortunately, making the adjustment to this pandemic atmosphere, which means a lot of time around home, a lot of time on Zoom, and a lot of wishful thinking that will make the adjustment to this sooner rather than later, it can get back to something close to normal.

Matthew 7:03
Okay, we can talk about how we're all dealing with this and how this is affecting your project. But just to remind our listeners, we're talking about the film or the soon upcoming documentary Imagining the Indian subtitled The Fight Against Native American Mascotting. So I just want to thank you again for coming on to the podcast. I stumbled across your project while doing some research a few months ago, I think it was maybe even an article in The Washington Post, and saw who was behind the project, and I was sensing, even from over here, some of the rumblings again about the Washington Football Team as it's now known, and told to my podcast manager, we need to get you guys on sooner rather than later. Now, things have moved a lot more quickly than I think many of us would have thought, and we talk about some of these issues, but for our listeners, we're gonna do things a little bit differently today. This is a film that's very much a work in progress. We're not going to have any clips. We're not going to necessarily discuss details about the film. But I think it's an important time. This is going to be released in early September or mid September, so I think this issue is still going to be rumbling along then as well. So, Kevin, if we can start with you, it's my understanding, what is this project and I gather it was originally your idea to make the film and why now?

Aviva Kempner 8:40
Well, it percolated my head back in 2013, 2014. And the reason was because there was a court challenge filed by Native Americans in what we call the Patent Trademark Office to get the name of the team canceled, and a ruling came down in their favor, and it looked at that time as if the nickname would be pushed over the ledge. And had that happen then, it would have been an incredible story over many decades of a small group of people, led by one particular woman for the longest, Suzanne Schoen Harjo, who was native, to get this nickname erased. I touch based with a friend of mine who's a filmmaker, his name is Sam Bardley, and he and I talked about the idea, and he liked it, and we pursued trying to put together a film about it, and really didn't have the complete infrastructure and couldn't get the funding that we needed. And in a conversation one day with Aviva who I gotten to know upon returning to DC, which is where I'm from, she was very interested in the project. Not only that that, had some experience with working with Native American fairs beforehand, knew some of the personalities involved, and embraced the idea, and here we are.

Matthew 10:23
Okay. So is this been, as you say, was percolating, but as a actual film project, how long is this been been going on?

Aviva Kempner 10:35
Sam and I, we formed a company back in 2014, 2015, called Shadow City Films, which is an ode to Washington DC as the Shadow City. And we produced a trailer and we had a crowd funding page up to raise funds. So this is a five year project so far.

Matthew 11:03
And, and Aviva what what attracted you to the project? Kevin's already mentioned how he got to you and pitched it to you.

Aviva Kempner 11:09
Oh, Kevin came to me about a year later. And although I've been doing films for the last 40 years about underknown Jewish heroes, what Kevin didn't know is I originally came to law school after first being in VISTA as an urban planner. But I really was just an activist working with Native American struggles that was at the time at Wounded Knee the early 70s. Great excitement at the Keifa Club at the University in New Mexico. And someone I was very close to was Larry Casuse, who is a Navajo activist who sadly had died in a shootout over certain issues in the area at the time, A Wounded Knee have never gotten the credit he deserves in terms of the organizing he was doing. I came here to law school, and while I was at law school, I worked on the American case especially in the summer, and upon graduating from law school, I worked at both the National Tribal Chairman's Association and the National Congress of American Indians. But then I had an epiphany to go work on my people, as I say. And as a child of a Holocaust survivor, I want to make a film about Jews fighting Nazis, my first film Partisans of Vilna, and that continued on. However, about seven years ago, I met Ben West, who had graduated from University of Southern California Film School, and I started telling him about Larry Casuse, and I actually met him at a reception for the opening of the Museum of the American Indian, which his father Rick West had created and ran. And I said, you know, Ben, this is a film that's got to be made, so then Ben and I wrote that script after I was like finishing my fourth or fifth I can't remember all the dates. So when Kevin and Sam came to me I said I'll do it, but only if Ben is part of the project. And he's our co-director and co-producer. But the reason he's not here right now, in his particular neighborhood of Los Angeles, they're digging new lines. So he couldn't be on. So we figured rather than ghost him by his voice, he just said, hey, you and Kevin get on it. But when the film's out, we'll come back.

Matthew 13:34
That would be great.

Aviva Kempner 13:36
And the other thing is, as I told you earlier, I hate football. And so in fact, the only football I ever have gone to a game is I went to the University of Michigan, which is a big, big football city, is going to the Rose Bowl and passing out literature against the war, which you can imagine how popular that was. I'm a big baseball fan. So the minute I hit Washington in '73 I was so upset by the name, I mean, right away. This is awful. And it's leaders, especially sports writers like Kevin, who have been great, and Christine Brennan we have in the film like twice others who started stop using the name, the insulting name and using another one. It's just amazing how this happened so fast. We're still reeling from it all. But it has a lot to do with the sadness of African American men being murdered again in a horrible way, that the Black Lives movement and it's spilling off, obviously in Native Americans movement, and most of all, the economic pressure that was put on the owner. Because he said never will I change the name. There's a line says never say never.

Matthew 14:53
Exactly. We'll quickly get to the the current situation but, Kevin, as part of this project, because you said what inspired you was the 2013-14 era court case. It was about that time that Daniel Snyder did say never.

Aviva Kempner 15:15
No, it was a few years after that. So a few things that happened between 2014 and now, one of the things was there was a Supreme Court case involving a rock group out of the upper Northwest, made up of Asian guys who wanted to call themselves The Slants, which is a slur and in order to get that trademarked, they had to fight a regulation, a law which said that a disparaging name cannot be trademarked. At any rate, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor that they could in fact use the name even though it was disparaging. And so with that, some more pressure that was on the team to change the name was a little bit relieved, and someone at USA Today asked Dan Snyder, the owner of the team about changing the name and that's when he said never. And you can put that in all caps. But what he didn't realize or maybe didn't recognize at the time, purposely or because he really didn't know, didn't pay attention, was that the franchise and the use of that name had really suffered some fissures over the years from all of the protest work that had been done previously by people like Suzanne Harjo, some law decisions that have been made in the early 1990s. And just the fact that a lot of high schools and colleges around the country, which had employed such a name, had slowly but surely gotten rid of those names, but the last one and the most egregious one, remain standing, aas this Washington Football Team.

Matthew 17:24
Go ahead, Aviva.

Aviva Kempner 17:25
The other thing that Dan Snyder did was he created supposedly a foundation to help Native Americans, which we now know he really didn't give any money. And more importantly, there was a so called study that was done among Native Americans saying that they weren't offended with the name, which has been discredited by several sociologists and psychologists. We already have some testimony, we'll have more. But not only did they say that that study was bogus results, but that there's a real detrimental effect of having that kind of racial slur name for a major football team. And that's nation's capital, especially on young Native American youth. We even have Kenneth Glover, who's now the Head of the Museum saying, I grew up in Washington, his parents moved in here, they were working for a Native American organization, and he said, I kept on hearing that name, and there was nothing positive about being Indian, Native American. And the news, you just see the pain on his face, and I know we have our Congresswoman Norton saying it would be like having the N word being said, and for me, it would be like the K word. As a matter of fact, one reason I really liked working on this film was I've always done Jewish heroes or non Jewish heroes, and to me this a an anti-Jewish hero that has been held accountable finally, and I'm really happy for that.

Matthew 19:08
Aviva you've raised a a point. Why has it taken so long? Because, as you pointed out, I can't be the only kid who played the offensive name game. I remember even in college, people sitting around saying, can you imagine, and you could think of all the different derogatory names for different ethnic and minority and religious groups you could come up with, and you could have the Brooklyn this and whatever, and it just seems so ridiculous. So it's just been staring us in the face for so long, at least certainly the last 50 years or so. Why do you think it's taken so long to get to this point beyond the fact that sponsors are pulling funds?

Kevin Blackinstone 19:58
One of the reasons is because The Native community in this country, which was their land, have been all decimated. That took place five centuries ago. When they've been removed from the landscape, and their voices have been muted through genocide, and the rest of us have grown up with an idea of them that is not true, that this struggle is not heard, the volume for it is not turned up, and even when it is turned up, it is dismissed and not taken seriously. One of the things that attracted me to want to do this is I'm a black son of Washington DC, who grew up with this team and a family had season tickets to go root for this team, and who fervently rooted for this team more so than any sports team in my life, and I never made the connection towards denigration and misappropriation of African American culture, to the denigration and misappropriation of Native American culture. The same thing that makes native folk mad makes me angry when it is something that deals with black culture. I started to make that connection and one of the things I've tried to do, one things I want to do with this film is to underscore that for black folks like me, not only in this city who grew up with this team, and may still want to cheer it on, but for black folks all across the country, to show how disingenuous and hypocritical it is for us to do that, when we have the same concerns about our culture.

Matthew 22:17
If I may stick with it, Kevin, cuz I've seen a bit of a more than just the trailer from what you've gotten in the film, and I even mentioned Christine Brennan, I think she alludes to this too. Why was there this blind spot for so long? And for you, as an African American man and then as certainly as a boy rooting for this team. Because, 50 years ago we had colleges changing the name, Stanford, Dartmouth, all kinds of schools all over the country changed their names, and then there are some holdovers that have over the last 20 years or so changing as well, but maybe in that context it's worth, as someone who has lived in Washington DC, maybe getting a feel for what this team means for the city, but also the community, for the US generally, because until I lived in DC, I didn't really have an appreciation for the rabid fandom that there is for for the team. I knew when to go cycling, it was on game day when the team was playing, because the roads will be completely empty, so revealed that I'm not a fan of the team. Could you maybe elaborate more on that?

Aviva Kempner 23:48
I think the things that you pointed out, those are very anecdota, and they were college. Dartmouth changed its name, Stanford changed its name, a couple of other schools here or there, but they were very anecdotal and they weren't national issues. This team was a national issue. This was the NFL, the largest, most powerful, wealthiest sports league on the planet Earth, so it's a little bit different, and not only that, but if you grow up here, you're inundated with this imagery, and you're inundated with it in a way that builds up to what you're alluding to, builds up pride within your city, pride within your region. So you never really think about those images. And the other thing is that, you're not likely to run into another native person on the street, who will stop you and say to you that T-shirt you're wearing is offensive to me. That word that you're saying is offensive to me. This was Chocolate City, it wasn't a Native American city. So largely because of that, there was no complaint to be heard, certainly not through a megaphone.

I think there's another underlying reason, one word, and it's my profession, it's Hollywood. I think Hollywood has done most to continue and portray horrible stereotypes of Native Americans to the films, to the TV shows, and a lot of what we're going to be showing visually, you see it a little already in both the trailer and the work in progress is how these stereotypes made it okay that they were less than a people. Actually, the R word really means a scalping, just historically it's offensive. And I think what Kevin says is so true, even today there's an article in the last week, there have been three articles in Washington Post and The New York Times, how because the reservations are so poor, and there's not water coming, that the virus has affected them much more than regular white communities. Oftentimes without buying power, etc. it doesn't come out now, what's great about the Black Lives movement, is they have also embraced the Native American concerns. You see the Columbus statues coming down or being objected to, so it seems like all of a sudden this whole exciting time has opened up the door to say that the names finally change, I think more for economic reasons than anything else, but there are still five professional teams that we're going to be following because people think our film is over. It isn't over.

Matthew 27:05
I was gonna ask you that question. And let's hold on to that thought because what I'm gonna do is give listeners a bit of a break, so we do a little promo for our sponsor, and then we'll come right back to you all to discuss this further. So, listeners, let's have a break, and we'll be back in about a minute or so.

You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter at Alamo Pictures to keep up to date with new releases for upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Aviva Kempner, award winning director of such films as The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg and also with Kevin Blackistone, producer of the filrm, and also award winning sports columnist. Film's Imagining the Indian. Kevin, before the break, we were talking about what's next. I was going to ask his job done, because obviously what I've seen in terms of the work in progress, the trailer focuses on the Washington Football Team. But what is next for this project? I guest, it could look at it two ways. Washington still has to choose its name, we assume they stick with the Washington Football Team that just rolls off the tongue. And also what's next for the project?

Aviva Kempner 28:44
Well, as far as the team, as I suggested before, this was the most egregious name, it was attached to one of the most lucrative teams in what is almost a $20 billion sports league which is the biggest sports league on the planet. And then all of us have a connection, Sam and I are from here, Ben is from here, Aviva has been here for aeons, we all have a connection to the city. So that's part of the importance of focusing on this team, and this team has also been the team that has come under pressure from the courts, has come under pressure with protests on the streets as well. So this is really the focal point. However, the idea is also that if this Domino falls, then all the others will fall along with it, and as Aviva suggested, there are other teams within pro sports within the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, National Basketball Association that also have names that are casten in native imagery, and we are fighting against native masscotting in sports, not just native masscotting in Washington DC.

Matthew 30:17
Okay, I think that's a very good point.

Aviva Kempner 30:26
I would suggest the viewer, if you really want to see an example of it, catch any Cleveland Indians game, which on one hand, they did a very good job of getting rid of Chief Yahoo on the field, but none of his image on his uniform. If you look in the Atlanta Braves name, the tomahawk on all the shirts and they do this insidious Tomahawk chop, which again, Native Americans don't do that. And we have footage in the past like when Jane Fonda was married to Ted Turner, she was doing it and also Rosalyn Carter. And that's got to change. The Chiefs, the hockey team in Chicago, and they said they're not going to change anything. The Indians have been in negotiations in the past, and they are going back into it, because there's been a lot of organizing in Cleveland as we speak. And it's something that we're going to have footage in it. And then the Chiefs, were the winners of the Super Bowl last year, and then Kevin could talk about the Warriors. I know less about that.

Matthew 31:40
That was the thing I had. Obviously I could put a mental list, those are the main ones, there are others have, and we could go down the list. I was going to ask, and I think I already know the answer, is there any room for exceptions here, because the reason I get at this is, obviously Washington's most egregious, but we do have others, mainly at the collegiate level, I would say, who say, oh no, it's a special relationship we have with a certain tribe or something like that. Do you see those kind of arguments is just for what they have been in the past, which is just ways of trying to avoid doing anything?

Kevin Blackinstone 32:23
Yeah, I've come to be opposed to all these names. The Not Your Mascot slogan is so true. People are not property of others, we're supposed to be past that. And they're certainly not properties of others when it is a culture that is being appropriated. And I know that people like to bring out the Florida State University. There's the Seminoles, and that is an argument that people bring out to kind of muddy these waters, but it doesn't muddy the waters at all for me. The Seminoles number one are a people. Number two, the Seminole nation is quite large, and it stretches from Florida all the way to Quila, Mexico. And not all Seminoles, by the way happen to agree with the use of their name image and likeness by Florida State University, even though part of the agreement between the Seminole nation that cut this deal and Florida State University is to have an educational program at Florida State University, which talks about the history of Native Americans, and particularly the Seminoles in the state of Florida. But you can go get the dictionary, it's this big, half filled with nouns. Go find something else, find an inanimate object to name your team. When the NBA, the women's professional basketball league, started up some 20 years ago, one of the things that they did is they came up with some creative inanimate names. Fever, Sparks, Liberty, they got creative, and people have embraced those names, they cheer those teams on, and no one is offended by it. No one. So we need to continue the effort at erasure of Native American names from these teams, and I'll throw one more in there. One name that has been thrown out as a possible replacement is Red Tails, which is problematic for a few reasons. The reason it's been thrown out is because Red Tails refers to the Tuskegee Airmen, a segregated part of the military aviation during World War Two, very much celebrated. And I happen to think that that name has been thrown out there and supported in some way by the team, because it's seen as some sort of a concession to black fans. Like that's the way it panders to us, like we're going to embrace that. But once again, if you want to honor the Tuskegee Airmen who were nicknamed The Red Tails, put a monument for them on the on the Mall in Washington DC. Don't turn them into pets on Sunday afternoon, mascots and have everybody n the stand wearing leather aviation helmets, like they were part of the Tuskegee Airmen, that reduces their heroism. And the other thing is, there just needs to be a clean break from any allusion to the word red. As Aviva said, that refers to the scalping of human beings, Native Americans, when they were trying to fend off the military that was decimating them as human beings on this continent. So we need a fresh start, it's easy to get a fresh start, and these names needn't have any place in sports.

Aviva Kempner 36:50
Like you know, Ben, if he was here said, I don't want anything with the name red in it. And my joke is that after, the animal rights people are going to start complaining about the names being animals. So my solution is we'll call teams number one, team number two, team number three. But seriously, it isn't just the name. When we look at the old footage of the band playing before the game started, it is horrendous how they would have all the people in the band with hair dresses. I mean, these are sacred. It would be like having yamaka skullcap, or priestly gown. I mean, you just don't do that in that kind of context, and as Kevin says, taking away from a culture. Also the Rug Tails, I mean, the Tuskegee Airmen were an incredible unit in the Air Force, and it's actually something depicted in a previous film of mine, because their airfield was paid by the Rosenwald Fund, but it was a segregated unit, because the Army and all the Armed Forces was segregated. There's a real stain on that too, not imposed by the men who were in it. But they had to like show themselves that they could fight, because it was so awful the way they were treated. So you really can't have that name either.

Matthew 38:16
Aviva, I was gonna ask you, because I think it's important maybe to re-emphasize it, because I myself get, just because I'm a bit of a sports geek and a history buff, and I like looking at all the the names and what could be the new names and things like that, but maybe explain to us, because I don't think we've discussed it yet, is first of all, how does masscotting affect Native Americans? Do you really get a feel, because I think that's something that comes out in at least the work in progress I've seen?

Aviva Kempner 38:50
Well, like I said, there's been these studies by the sociologists and psychologists saying that, when they show pictures to young Native Americans, and then they see how they're depicted, itt just really affects the psyche, especially when you don't hear anything positive. And when you see these characters, I've spent 40 years trying to make films against stereotypes against my people, and I can just bring up a time and time again how that's affected, the psyche of young Jewish kids. And I'm sure Kevin could give you his examples, to the time that we would often hide who we were, I mean, I can remember being disinvited to someone's house for dinner when she found out I was Jewish, I still remember that. And that happened 40 years ago, or maybe even longer. So, it is a new era, and I think the best thing is there are so many wonderful names. By the way, Kevin, you should have mentioned the Mystics, we have a winning female basketball team here. I mean, these are beautiful names, and you don't have to have these insidious insulting costumes.

Matthew 40:07
As you say it's Washington, as many would say always the most egregious example that domino is falling.

Aviva Kempner 40:20
Kevin can tell you more because this is before I came here, but the previous owner Marshall, they didn't even hire any African American players. It was a straight racist policy not to hire any players, and that's why his statue, we kept for that on film and that's why his statue, I don't know they put red paint on. So there's a double whammy in terms of racism and football here. I also think it's too violent a sport but that's a whole other story.

Matthew 40:54
Well that's another discussion we can have later in this podcast. But but I think, and even me personally, in some ways, I always found Cleveland, as long as that logo was there, I found that is one of the most egregious, because I couldn't believe it lasted for as long as it did. But we've kind of already touched on this, so what I've seen is very Washington focused, but how do you envisage this film now evolving in the next, COVID-19 and everything permitting? How is this project going to evolve? Both of you, Aviva maybe you can start.

Aviva Kempner 41:43
Look, we're going to follow these five professional teams. I don't think it's all going to happen this year, but I think Cleveland first, and I think Atlanta, and you know what happened with Atlanta? It's fascinating. Atlanta was playing St. Louis, of course they didn't make it to the end for the pennant. Our nationals did. But it was a Cherokee pitcher Ryan Hensley, who said, I'm not going to go pitch in Atlanta, if they're going to do this chop. It is offensive to me being a member of the Cherokee Nation. So finally, when you have some native players, they're saying something. And I think that's really the beginning, so I think that's going to really change in terms of that. And you see a movement happening all around the country in terms of high schools and colleges, and I think this is what's in the Black Lives Matter focus, and protests will be brought back on these kind of cases, too. I think we're finally are examining in our own society, these kind of racist, even practices in sports is not acceptable.

One of the things that we did not envision when we started this film was the fact that the Black Lives Matter movement would erupt off and wind up toppling George Preston Marshall's statue, and wind up putting pressure to bear on corporate sponsors, who then put pressure to bear on the team to drop the offensive name. But it's really been dynamic. But there's a important connection there. And the connection is, is that the Black Lives Matter movement took on in the wake of George Floyd's murder by police, took on the issue of police brutality against black men, took on the issue of white supremacy, and took on the idea of erasing all of this imagery from our society, putting it away where it belongs to be, if it belongs to be any place. And that goes right to toppling statues of Christopher Columbus. And why is that important? Because Christopher Columbus accidentally seeded racism in this country, and invited the genocide which befell Native Americans in this country. So here we are in 2020, still with the nickname, a slur for Native Americans, and the Black Lives Matter movement is finally putting that to rest. There's been a long history of black people and Native Americans in this country. In fact, I mentioned the Seminoles earlier. There's a large number of the prodigy of enslaved Africans within the Seminol nation, that fought with the Seminoles in Florida and all across the southern United States into Mexico. There was a black civil rights worker who disappeared at Wounded Knee, who was there in solidarity with those folks. And now, native folks are tied up with the Black Lives Matter movement, because they realized that that movement to reckon with racial injustice in this country is also a part of their movement. So there's a lot of connective tissue between black people in this country and Native American people in this country, and always has been.

Another thing that we're really proud of, thanks to Ben, is that we have one of the California tribes Yocha Dehe, who is our early big supporter, they're our executive producerm and, as much as possible, we're trying to have Native American input in terms of, especially at the end, my films have always gone on DVD with bonus features to be taught and study guides. Because we really want this to be an exciting movie in its own right, but also some that has a lot of educational value. And it's interesting what just happened with Gone with the Wind, it was taken off of Turner Classic Movies, put back on with a scholar talking ahead of it, saying that there are scenes in this that just make you cringe and why in the context. And I'm hoping the same will happen with a lot of these movies. And I've been watching them day and night to see one of these bits of them. I mean, some of them. especially the old ones, you just cringe, and hopefully more Native American filmmakers, especially in the feature realm, will be able to make their films and their stories from their point of view. And that's the best thing. Not all the movies are going to be thrown out the window, but you have to give a context to it, which we already have one scholar Julia Prewitt from California talking about it, and we'll have others too.

Matthew 47:27
Okay. And I think also in the work in progress, I think it's in the trailer, too, I believe, Christine Brennan from USA Today and formerly the Washington Post when I was there in Washington, saying that's Generation Z, certainly, is just not gonna, it may happen even before they're in a position of real power, but it's certainly not going to stand very long because they won't stand for things like this.

Aviva Kempner 47:57
Right. You know, just recently down the street and I've got a call and find out more about it, they opened a tobacco store. And what do they have in the window? Some cigar Indians. And people started calling me, so I just haven't had time lately because one thing we're doing is fundraising for the film. It's a 5013 that makes the film right, anyone can go to the website Imagining the Indians, and get your tax deduction to help finish this film, but seriously, there's still these hangovers that you think it's been out the window and it hasn't.

Matthew 48:40
So how does this look in terms of, I guess filming probably had to stop because of the coronavirus pandemic?

Aviva Kempner 48:49
We call it Doom filming, there's all these new techniques being developed, and then you know, Ben is in California, that really helps us through the remaining shoots there. We'll do them here, we have a former Washington football team player that has agreed to be in the film, and Kevin will do that. It's the other cities, that we will just have to find filmmakers there, people that'll do it for us. And we want very much, because it's so much in the news and so contemporary they have it done. By the end of the year our editor's coming back on, and I'm not sure when and if Sundance will happen. It may not happen at the end of January. The biggest reason to premiere at Sundance is and I was there this past January, is they go out of their way, there's a whole Native American unit there, they introduce every film no matter what the topic is, saying, you know what tribe used to be on that land. There is a real sensitivity, unlike any other festival in the country, although we are showing a work in progress in several festivals all over the country.

Matthew 49:58
Okay. So hopefully by the end of the year with the release or premiere at Sundance virtually or however it's done, that's the plan.

Aviva Kempner 50:10
That's the plan.

Matthew 50:14
Well, if we haven't scared you off, we'd love to have you back on, maybe we can get Ben on then, his technical issues will be dealt with by then. Go ahead.

Aviva Kempner 50:27
I have a question for you, because we sent a press release when our website was out, in fact, we have more interviews when I had a film coming out because it was so hot as the topic was so high. So Ben and I spoke in front of the Hollywood foreign press who put on Golden Globes, and there was a lot of interests, especially on those who grew up in Germany, because there was an author who wrote books about Native Americans and even films were made, and even if you see Parasite this past year, this outstanding film from Korea, you have the young boy out in the backyard. I just wonder have you seen anything about them in terms of England, are there any teams named after Native Americans? I was just curious if that tended to the British Empire?

Matthew 51:23
Well, thanks for turning it around and asking me a question, that doesn't happen very often, but it is appreciated. So we're produced by a new production company called Alamo Pictures, the founder's German, we've had German filmmakers on previously who've done a film about modern American cowboys. There is certainly a interest that I don't know the roots of it, you may be getting to it.

Aviva Kempner 51:55
They may have read those storybooks.

Matthew 51:57
They've read those storybooks, they have a keen interest in the American West. Okay. Now, I'm not acquainted with the storybooks, so I don't know how Native Americans are depicted, let's put it that way, but I do know that there's a keen interest in Europe in general. I mean, I remember when I first moved to this country, my wife and I had to go to a wedding in Alaska, and almost the entire long way, there's an Italian family. And they were just, they were going to see the great Wild West. I mean, there is this sort of obsession, because you don't have, yes, you have soaring vistass and things like that in Europe, but there's something, you don't have what you have in the West, certainly, in Europe. In terms of teams, I am aware of a English rugby team that uses this sort of imagery, Rugby Union, not that anyone cares about, it was from rugby union rugby league, but it's a rugby union team, I don't know other teams well enough to tell you which one that is. I think it might be Exeter.

Aviva Kempner 53:09
I'll do some research. Yeah.

Matthew 53:10
Yeah, there's a soccer team in South Africa that's got a similar imagery, or used to, I don't know if they still do. The only reason I know about that is, I'm here in Leeds, which is the home of a group called the Kaiser Chiefs. And they are named after that soccer team.

Aviva Kempner 53:32
Oh, right there.

Matthew 53:34
Yeah. But that's a Leeds based band. I don't doubt that there are the odd, I don't mean it that way, but there'll be one or two teams here and there in European sports leagues that have some sort of imagery, or even not just Native American, but possibly even African American stereotypes.

Aviva Kempner 54:05
And that's one of the problems, I mean, sports has done more to normalize and commodify these sorts of nicknames, and this sort of imagery, then anything else in society, to the point where people in Europe would adopt these names because they have no clue as to what the history is, but see that as this part of Americana, that they want to embrace, and the team you're talking about in South Africa, I believe is in Cape Town. And that's the Chiefs there, which they borrowed from the National Football League and have the colors and the emblem and everything. There's even a team in, I wanna say Scotland, they call themselves The Rebels, and their imagery is taken from the Confederacy here in the States. That's why this is so pernicious, because it has removed any edge, any stain, it has diluted these names to something that people can can embrace, and without any context to history, and how hurtful and damaging it can be.

Matthew 55:35
Well, one thing on this. and maybe even bring it full circle, I've been off and on living in Europe or visiting Europe for at least over 30 years. The one team that always surprised me when I first started seeing the, whether it was a hat or shirt or jacket, but it would be the Washington Football Team. I don't know if it's because you've got diplomats who hand out, who, you know, many of them are Washington based, many of them become fans. It reminds me of an anecdotal story of a friend of mine from California actually went to Stanford. He was interning in the State Department, he's actually pretty now fairly senior in the State Department, but we were both in Washington in the early 90s. And he was having some run ins with a co-worker of his and they said, it was a Monday and they said, Mike go easy on the guy. The Washington Football Team lost on Sunday, that'd even permeate the workplace. So it would be shocking, I'd be in Moscow or I'd go in Prague and you just see someone walking down the street. I see it here. I live in Yorkshire in England, and I will see the odd person every now and then with the old logo and everything, more so than I see just about any other NFL team. Why that is I don't know, we can have a whole discussion about that. But it is, I would say, at least it's anecdotal, I would say it's the fact, that's the one you're most likely to see. And I grew up as a Dallas Cowboys fan.

Aviva Kempner 57:18
Did they wear the Yankees hat? I doubt it.

Matthew 57:22
Well, in terms of the NFL, but in terms of, Yankees hats, although not as common as they used to be, just after 9/11 Yankees hats were everywhere. But that is yeah, you'll still see the odd Yankees hat. Basketball's becoming ever and ever more popular, so it's going to be increasingly stuff like Lakers hats, maybe you'll get a Celtics shirt or, I even saw a Juwan Howard jersey, someone was wearing on the basketball court the other day and that just shocked me. But you're right it is the power of the American culture, media and the power it has in this globalized world, and I swear that the tomahawk chop I don't remember the Braves having that in the 70s when I was a kid, I think it's something relatively recent that I think it emanates from Florida State and Florida State came to prominence in college football, and then people started copying it in Atlanta, I gather Kansas City does it too, I'm not sure. So these are these things, that are, it's not even so muc that they're so long held, a lot of the issues obviously are.

Aviva Kempner 58:46
The thing with Washington is we've had two team changes. When Abe Pollin, his widow just died the other day, was running the basketball team and they were called the Bullets and he was upset about the high number of murders both in Washington and it was very close to Yitzhak Rabin who was assassinated in Israel. He just got up and said I'm going to change the name and they became The Wizards. And then when baseball luckily was brought back here, the City Council very wisely, because I'm a big voting rights advocate for statehood for DC, said you can't call it The Senators again, because we don't have any voted senators in Congress, and we don't have votes in Congress, so call them Nationals or call them the Nats, the owners were fine with that and they adjusted to that, and then sometimes we'll see at the state and people with those Senators guards, so I say the third is a charm. And in fact, there's a whole history for name changes in Washington, and see how I got statehood in the discussion.

Matthew 59:52
You managed it well, we got Eleanor Holmes Norton in the film, the work in progress. I think you make a good point. I was there when the team was changed from Bullets to Wizards. It took them a while to get the, if we're going to get into these sort of geeky things, it took a while to get the uniform color combination, right? Tthey've kind of done both. Now they hark back to the old days, but got the new name and a whole generation grows up and never even remembers, or it's almost a kind of a trivia answer to a question that it used to be the Bullets. And you're right, he did it overnight. I don't think he did any marketing studies or anything. He just said, we're gonna change it. And this is possible. The Kansas City doesn't have to be the Chiefs anymore, and Atlanta doesn't have to be the Braves and Cleveland's got the easiest, they can just go back to being the Spiders. That's what they were, or are the Naps, I don't think that's gonna take off.

Aviva Kempner 1:01:01
Oh my god, Itsy Bitsy Spiders, I don't know if I want that as the name of a baseball team.

Matthew 1:01:07
There's precedents, they were the Cleveland Spiders for a few years way, way back when. But once all these names changing, and get you back on and we can discuss whether we think these are good names or how they've done. I have to say I think we're coming to the end of our time together. It's been a very interesting discussion. I want to thank you so much. You've already mentioned the website for the project, we'll put that in the show notes, other ways that we can follow the two of you and find out what's next?

Aviva Kempner 1:01:39
Well, we have a very active Tweeter in Facebook and Kevin has up all the news on it, so again, are you going to be visiting the States anytime soon, I guess when things open up, right?

Matthew 1:01:59
Yeah, I was there in March actually, I was in Texas when the when the ban was put in place on European travel to the US but I did manage to get back obviously, and I'm not sure when I'll next get back to the US given how things are going at the moment, but yes, I'm hoping, I always try to get back as often as I can.

Aviva Kempner 1:02:24
Right. And Sebastian, if he read these books, because they came up with this Hons, and I had never heard of it. He said they even filmed movies based on these German books about Indians and they filmed them in Yugoslavia.

Matthew 1:02:49
Aviva then you've got another doc on your hands. That could be an interesting story or or short, at least.

Aviva Kempner 1:02:58
On another separate note, did you See Traders, a six-part series, I just watched it this past weekend, because I made the film but OSS person and this is about a OSS operativ, the OSS, the Americans were worried that when the Labor won after the end of the war, threre'll be Soviet influence, so they were trying to find out what was being done internally. It's good series.

Matthew 1:03:26
Oh, well, thanks for the recommendation. No, I haven't seen it. But that sounds very interesting.

Aviva Kempner 1:03:31
I just want to know if there's a second season.

Matthew 1:03:36
Well that's the thing about documentaries we've been discussing on this program and just amongst ourselves is the cultural moments we used to get with like broadcast television and certainly sports, creates a lot of those things, are happening now in the factual and documentary world. The number of people who talk about The Last Dance here is absolutely amazing, people who couldn't care less about basketball, everyone's talking about it over here. And actually, this episode's gonna be released just after we had the British filmmakers who've done the doc on Air Jordans, which is coming out. It was supposed to premiere it at South by Southwest, but that got canceled. But again, you've got these, well it's all generations, but you've got these young up and coming filmmakers who are doing some very interesting things, asking questions, telling stories. Some of us wrongly had thought all the stories have been told. No, there's so many stories still to be told and from new and interesting perspectives. And I think that's really what's exciting right now.

Aviva Kempner 1:04:49
There's Red Penguins, you know about that? I'm gonna watch it this weekend with my brother.

Matthew 1:04:58
Okay. I think it's a golden age, not just because a few docs are making loads of money, although I know yours have done all right for themselves Aviva. I think the industry is really opening up to more and more people, and we've had some very interesting discussions I like to think on this podcast, looking at things from a very new angle, and you've got filmmakers of color, and female filmmakers who are looking at things maybe differently than many of us would have been looking at them just a few years ago. So I think it's a very exciting time.

Aviva Kempner 1:05:45
One final question, so you still vote absentee in the States or no?

Matthew 1:05:51
I do, I vote in the state of Massachusetts because that's where I last lived.

Aviva Kempner 1:05:56
Okay. So marquee Biden, okay? Very important to elecy Marky, he's great on the environment. He's in my Moe Berg film, really important.

Matthew 1:06:06
Okay.

Aviva Kempner 1:06:08
Even though I worked for RFK in '68 I don't think his grandson should be doing this. And then I don't need to say why to vote for Biden.

Matthew 1:06:18
Well I'll leave it at that, but thanks for the tip. If I may, thank you, I do hate to wrap it, but I just want to thank you Aviva Kempner, the director and Kevin Blackistone, the producer and co-producer along with the Aviva of Imagining the Indian,and hopefully next time we can get Ben West on who couldn't be with us today.

Kevin Blackinstone 1:06:48
You all should read Kevin's columns. Kevin, is there a link to your columns?

Matthew 1:06:56
Yeah, we'll put it on, I mean, I didn't even mention Around the Horn, I haven't done any of that stuff, we haven't walked down what would be a bit of a memory lane for me, but rightfully so I think wanted to really focus in on this subject, which I think is not just timely, but one that is long overdue for being discussed. So thanks again to both of you for coming on. I want to give a shout out to This Is Distorted Studios here in Leeds, England, and to remind you to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:41
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA or international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guests, and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at Alamo Pictures, be the first to hear about new productions festival showing our films and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk

Imagining the Indian: De-Mascoting Native Americans in Sports

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Imagining the Indian: De-Mascoting Native Americans in Sports

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