McGill’s ‘Redmen’ name reinforces white settler society: U.S. scholar

‘These names are about reminding folks that they’re the victors,’ professor says

Why do non-Indigenous sports teams steal the names and symbols of North America’s first peoples? McGill University’s continued use of “Redmen” for its teams has many on campus grappling with that question. The name is considered an anti-Indigenous slur and has spurned protests and a campaign to rename the team. When it emerged in the 1920s, the name Redmen was intended to describe the school’s signature colour but many still find it offensive and point to McGill’s use of racist tropes over the years. At various points, women’s teams were called the Squaws, men’s teams were nicknamed the Indians and frequently used tomahawks or headdresses in their logos. One expert says it is less about honouring Indigenous culture than reinforcing the view that white society has conquered First Nations. “It’s the image of this historic Indian that white society defeated and bested and took his image as a trophy,” said Washington State University professor Richard King. “It reinforces a vision of white settler society.” King wrote the book Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy, and he’ll be speaking at McGill Thursday. “These names are about reminding folks that they’re the victors — this is their property,” he told the Montreal Gazette. “I wouldn’t say necessarily that the Redmen do so in an elaborate way, but it doesn’t need to be elaborate for it to be hurtful. “McGill’s not the only place where there is this slippage from Redmen to ‘Indians.’ There were teams in the U.S. that were named after the colour of uniforms but over time that notion of being ‘the red men’ begins to attract these stereotypes.” McGill removed the Indigenous imagery from its sports teams after protests in the early 1990s. The most recent controversy over McGill’s name re-emerged in September when Tomas Jirousek, a varsity rower from the Kainai First Nation in Alberta, brought it up during a town-hall meeting at the university. He had spoken to other Indigenous students and they shared their discomfort with the term Redmen. But when he brought it up at the meeting, he was confronted by other athletes who fiercely defended the name. King, who spent years following similar debates in U.S. college sports, says this is fairly typical of the way these conversations go. “You’ll have boosters, administration or other students push back and try to contain the critique,” he said. “They’ll tell an Indigenous student he doesn’t understand the issue, that it isn’t meant as racism … or that there are more important issues for First Nations to deal with.” On the other hand, King argues, there seems to be more of a willingness in Montreal to hear students like Jirousek out. Last week, Jirousek organized a protest against the team name and it was — despite a downpour and cold weather — attended by a number of non-Indigenous students. Last year, McGill’s provost commissioned a working group to enact the recommendations from the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission and make the campus more accessible to Indigenous students. One of the working group’s recommendations was to change the team’s name given its connotations. The university has argued that because the intent of the name was originally benign and because the Indigenous iconography has been removed, it decided to keep the name. Professor Fabrice Labeau, the student life and learning deputy provost, says the university is reconsidering that decision. “It might be about a different relationship that Canadian society has with Indigenous people — which it probably is given the moment of reconciliation that Canada is in,” said King. “Even if (reconciliation) is imperfect, I don’t think you would see this kind of empathy in the U.S.” Though contemporary examples with teams like the Washington Redskins in the U.S. or the Edmonton Eskimos in Canada show some fans’ resistance to change, King says there are precedents in major college sports. In the 1970s, Native American students at Stanford University successfully petitioned the college to get rid of its stereotypical “Indian” mascot. On the tails of that victory, students at Syracuse University managed to have the “Big Chief Bill Orange” mascot retired in 1978. Both sports programs remain among the most popular in the United States.