Racism and slavery are the most significant black marks on this experiment we called the United States of America and our quest for Freedom. For me personally, I believe the value of Freedom is our most important core value. I believe as human beings; we are hardwired or created to yearn and strive for Freedom.
I believe that the evolution of humankind and our attempt to create a society with equal opportunity must make destroying the chains of slavery and racism a priority in order to protect the integrity of this experiment. We must pay attention to and learn from the communities that have had to survive and learned to thrive through the oppression that in many ways is still happening. A prime example is Native American mascots in sports. If you quit reading here because you have fallen prey to some Marxist activist who hijacked this story to divide us, you will miss an important perspective that will further educate you and bring all of us closer together, not continue to divide us. Read On!
I am an enrolled citizen of Cherokee Nation, but I didn’t grow up within my tribal community. My mother was born and raised near Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The rest of our family came from and resided in Sequoyah County, one of the 14 counties that make up the Cherokee Nation Reservation. Because of the abuse, my mother endured at the hands of her father, when she married my dad, they moved away from Oklahoma. My father's first responsibility was to create a safe place for his family to grow away from my grandfather. He did his best to create a good home for my brothers and sister, and I gave him credit for that. However, one of the consequences of the move away from Oklahoma was a disconnection from the tribe and not growing up within my community.
Twenty years ago, when I started my personal transformation, as I began to follow my heart and define myself, my heart wanted to know it was enough and that I belonged and connected somewhere. That need to belong is not unique to me; that desire is also hardwired in all of us. However, I grew up in a sheltered environment. My father did his best, but he was a simple man. His underdeveloped religious ideology lacked perspective and authentic strength to stand the pressure test of real adversity outside his small world.
One of the best things I did as a father was to cut off the influence of that underdeveloped ideology for my daughters' lives and give them the opportunity to gain a more authentic perspective based on actual real-life experience outside where they grew up. I hope you can gain some new perspective based on my journey; that’s what I hope to do for you as you read this blog.
When my daughters were growing up, we didn’t I didn’t have a ton of money, but I did have a lot of support from my brothers, and we worked hard. I made it a priority to make sure my daughters had the opportunity to serve others outside of where they grew up. I also made sure my daughters knew who they were as Cherokee women and today they are connected and growing within their culture and community. Now, later in my life’s journey, because I’ve learned that perspective is so valuable, I have the opportunity to listen and grow my understanding and perspective of the history and journey of my people and what that means to be Cherokee in the larger American culture.
No one who knows me would ever call me anything close to a racist. I’ve stood with and up for others from different cultures and stood up for those who were oppressed my whole life. I remember fighting in the hallways of my junior high for someone who was bullied. I remember giving my new Nikes my middle-class parents gave me for Christmas to another classmate who had holes in his shoes. I recognized his athletic ability and chose him for my team of misfits so we could compete on the blacktop at lunchtime during the pickup football game. I remember wanting to fight because my heart burned two take down the oppressor. I’m not saying I’m some hero; fight just comes out to me, it’s in my design, I’m wired up from the heart to hate oppression and to love Freedom. That desire to fight has got me in a lot of trouble in my life, but as I’ve learned to keep it connected to my core values, FIGHT helps me fuel purpose in my life. I believe that the same desire is born in American hearts. Because we were born in a place that values Freedom and the power of the individual to create something for their life, It makes us a unique people compared to the rest of the world. It just so happens that we now live in the freest culture ever on the face of the planet, and we can exercise and shape that Freedom if we choose to.
I have always lived in a sports world with diverse cultures and defended every individual’s right to be defined by their own character as a person. I’ve always seen people for who they were as individuals and demanded that people see me that way.
Every Freedom-loving, reasonable, conscious thinker will hopefully understand that what goes on in the sports world with Native American mascots is for sure a problem despite the billions of dollars the branding of those teams represents. It’s this simple, Native people shouldn’t be mascots. No racial group should be associated with a mascot, ever! Not Black people, not Asian people, not White people, not Native Hawaiian people, not Native American people. I’m embarrassed to say I felt a misplaced sense of pride because I had not learned the effects Native American mascots have on Native peoples in the U.S., especially the young people growing up surrounded by the greater American culture. Research shows that these depictions and actions contribute to low self-esteem, increased rates of depression, self-harm, and substance abuse, and discrimination in schools against Native youth.
If what most people in the greater American culture understand about Native peoples comes from a mascot, a chant, or even the tomahawk chop at a ball game, can’t you see how it minimizes the struggles many Native communities are facing today and undermines the extreme value Native perspectives bring to society? When it comes to this perspective of racism and slavery, we must listen to the voices of the people who have experienced it. If we do not continue to grow this conversation, we will cease to continue to move forward as a society and culture.
WARNING! Let’s not be so open-minded that our brains leak out, and we lose the ability to be a critical thinker based on the original set of traditional values that so many Americans that came before us fought for. Those values have made this country the freest country in the history of humankind. Everyone who enjoys the benefits of the United States of America, who has the ability to stand up and make their voice heard, who has the opportunity to be educated and come forward, has that opportunity because America is not ultimately bad. For sure, this experiment is messy, for sure many wrongs have been done, but the opposite is also true. For sure many great things have happened for Freedom's sake, the results are obvious. If we destroy this system, we will lose everything we have gained as humans in the pursuit of Freedom and equal opportunity. THAT DOES NOT MEAN WE SHOULD STOP LEARNING AND GROWING.
This discussion is messy, filled with ideologues on either end of the spectrum. One of the other challenges is that enemies of Freedom who wish to destroy it, enemies of our values that wish to divide us, separate us into groups that argue with each other, divide us by making the conversation about the left or the right. So many conversations have intentionally drawn us into egotistical battles where we get lost trying to prove what we believe is right. We marginalize ourselves, and we miss what is true. We might miss or minimize this opportunity to further destroy racism and slavery in the places where they still exist right now. Replacing Native mascots and the tomahawk chop is the right thing to do based on the ugly truth of what took place in our history. Let’s listen, get this right and move Freedom forward for everyone! -Strength and Honor
Keep Coming Forward
Jim Hensel
