UA Professors Will Discuss Sports and Native American Masculinity

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama’s Women’s Resource Center and the Alabama Program in Sports Communication will co-host a panel discussion titled “Being Brave: Sports and Native American Masculinity.”

The panel will be 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 19, in Gorgas Library, room 205. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Andrew Billings,  director of the Alabama Program in Sports Communication, and will feature Dr. George Daniels, assistant dean for administration of the College of Communication and Information Sciences and associate professor of journalism; Dr. Utz McKnight, chair and associate professor of gender and race studies; Dr. Rich Megraw, associate professor of American studies; and Dr. Harold Selesky, associate professor of history. The group will explore a number of topics centered on Native Americans and sport, including recent controversy over sporting teams’ mascot names.

“I think any time you can talk about issues of race and ethnicity and how they play a role in our society, it is a good thing,” Daniels said. “There’s no right or wrong time to do that. The controversy involving the Washington sports team is not a new issue. It’s well documented in academic literature, but the recent attention on it reminds us we have to be conscious of the role that race and ethnicity play in things as simple as what teams we root for and what games we attend.”

Megraw said the idea of ‘playing Indian’ has marked American culture far beyond sports arenas, yet this remains a focal point in many discussions about Native Americans.

“Throughout their social experience, the ‘Indian’ and ‘Indian-ness’ have remained central to the on-going search for a distinctive American character and national identity,” Megraw said. “Perhaps nowhere else has this tendency been more visible than in the area of ‘play,’ whether manifested by on-going attempts by whites to ‘play Indian,’ or to incorporate the Indian into the display of self and society through sport.”

Eric Patterson, one of the coordinators of the event for the Women’s Resource Center, said continuing conversations on issues such as gender, identity politics, race and other topics is a goal of the center and something it hopes to foster through the “Being Brave” discussion.

“Within today’s society there must be avenues by which people can address problems in a way that will bring about awareness and open up discourse,” Patterson said. “This forum will serve as one of those avenues.”

The event is free and open to the public.