And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: From: "Robert Eurich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> W. Richard West, Jr., executive director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, had a few things to say about stereotypes yesterday at a meeting of the National Press Club http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/28/114l-092899-idx.html <clipped excerpts> No Room for Stereotypes For the Indian Museum, a Task of Historic Proportions By Jacqueline Trescott Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 28, 1999; Page C01 <clipped> "As a museum of living cultures, the National Museum of the American Indian hopes to change forever the way people view the hemisphere's first citizens--primarily by erasing the mindless and often harmful stereotypes that frequently haunt native people," West said yesterday in a speech at the National Press Club. <clipped> Yesterday's forum, and the discussion of stereotypes, inevitably brought up the vexing question of the Washington Redskins football team. "I think there are words that are just not appropriate. 'Redskin' in particular is pejorative," West said, emphasizing that he was speaking not as a Smithsonian official but as a Native American. But he also pointed out that there are no easy answers in the name debate; some Indians, he said, don't object to "Braves" or "Warriors." "It goes back to this notion of this unidimensionality of a people," West said. "It is not a complete picture of native people. That is what is wrong with those kind of references to anybody." <end excerpts> American Indian Sports Team Mascots http://members.tripod.com/earnestman/1indexpage.htm "Little drops of rain wear away the greatest of stones."
