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"Robert V. Schmidt" wrote: > Andre, > > I want to see this poll you lambasted at > http://www.escribe.com/culture/native_news/m26567.html. Is there any link > to it online? > > We should be suspicious of any poll not conducted by an independent polling > organization such as Gallup. Among the questions to ask are: > > * Who conducted this poll? > > * What questions did the poll ask and how did it phrase them? > > * Did Sports Illustrated or whoever conduct this poll of its own > readership--a group obviously biased toward the sports status quo? > > * Did Sports Illustrated or whoever conduct this poll by phone? A phone > poll is more likely to reach conservatives, who have more money to afford > phone service. (It was a phone poll that predicted Dewey would beat > Truman.) With the poverty in Indian country, a phone poll of Indians is > especially likely to be biased. > > * Did Sports Illustrated conduct this poll online? As with phone users, > Internet users are notoriously more conservative than average. > > * How did the pollster find and identify a group of Native Americans, if > that's what it did? With the various subsets of enrolled Indians, > non-enrolled Indians, part-Indians, etc., any purported sample of "Indians" > will have problems. That's why the Census Bureau now says there's a range > of people--I think it's 2.1 to 4.1 million--who identify themselves as > having Native American ancestry. Which part of this amorphous group did > the poll question? > > You'll see few if any polls reporting Native American opinion on any > subject. Why? Because of this same problem in defining and finding a > Native American population. Did Sports Illustrated, a weekly magazine with > deadline constraints, really go to all 550-plus reservations, get their > membership rolls, and do a random sample of them? How in the world did SI > identify the 50%-plus of Indians who live in urban settings? I can't > conceive of a poll methodology that wouldn't be badly biased. > > More on the SI article: > > When Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma says, "I take the middle ground," Sports > Illustrated makes it sound as if he supports mascots. In fact, > Kuwanwisiwma implies he dislikes mascots that are derogatory. That would > be a fair number of mascots. I don't know about the people SI polled, but > I suspect many people would agree with this position: let's get rid of the > derogatory mascots first, then worry about the others. > > Since Kuwanwisiwma is Hopi, most teams aren't directly mocking his culture. > But Kuwanwisiwma and other Hopis raised a big stink when a comic book (NFL > SUPERPRO #6) portrayed their sacred kachinas in a story. So Kuwanwisiwma > understands the difference between sports and real life, but not the > difference between comic books and real life? Uh-huh. > > I suspect Kuwanwisiwma would raise an even bigger stink if some Arizona > team named itself the Kachinas, used a kachina as its logo, and had a > kachina perform at games. Until he's willing to speak out in favor of > "harmless" kachina sports teams and comic books, his opinion on distant > Indian tribes isn't persuasive. > > Incidentally, I did a quick search on Google to see if I could find this or > other polls on mascots. I didn't find much, but here's one: > > http://www.nsa.com/Poll1.cfm?Poll_ID=260 > > Should the Cleveland Indians change their logo? 60% in the National > Spectators Association Poll of the Day said yes. I wonder how that squares > with the SI poll. > > When schools conduct student or community polls about eliminating their > Indian mascots, usually the vote is roughly 50-50. These are polls of > everyone, including the people most invested in their own mascots. If > roughly 50% of Anglos find their team mascots objectionable, how is it > possible that 80% of Native people DON'T find team mascots objectionable? > > In short, SI's poll results make no sense, which is why we should ask some > hard questions about the poll's methodology. > > Rob Schmidt > Publisher > PEACE PARTY > http://www.bluecorncomics.com/mascots.htm -- André Cramblit: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Operations Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC (http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs of American Indians and operates an art gallery featuring the art of California tribes (http://www.americanindianonline.com) ============================================================ Good, Better, BEST! What's better than a year's subscription to Ladies' Home Journal? Only a FREE year's subscription! 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