Wrd Chruchill- "Crimes Against Humanity"

Ward Churhill's "Crimes Against Humanity" brings to light the subtle racism involved in sports and in law, that is still present in America today. He critisizes America's hypocracy in at first a sarcastic tone. Throughtout the essay, towards the end, his tone becomes aggressive and insists that America should admit that creating sports teams with Native American derogatory names and Indian chants with no meaning but to "have fun" at encouraging their teams while insulting Native American people. I did not really notice how these types of descrimination exist in such a popular aspect such as sports teams. Chruchill states, "a substantial number of American Indians have protested that the use of native names, images [...] racist practice" (535). I felt that team names such as the "[...] Cleveland Indians,Washington Redskins, and Kansas City Cheifs" (535), were virtually the same as giving team names like " the Wisconsin 'Wetbacks' and Batlimore 'Beaners' " (537), or cheer "[...] players and cheerleaders, garbed in leopard skins and wearing fake bones on their noses" (536) is incredibly offensive to people that belong to certain races and ethnicities that are depicted in these stereotypes. I agree that there are not as many Native Americans to speak out against these stereotypes targeted at them, mainly because of the diseases and slaughter of the early twentieth century that drastically decreased their population and shockingly in years as recent as 1990, a " 'field test' of Hepititis A vaccine, also HIV correlated is being conducted on Indian reservations in the Northern plains region", although by law this experimentation was at the time prohibited. Churchill maybe one of the few voices for the excluded Indian tribes, in history we have Cesar Chavez that spoke for immigrant Hispanic workers and Martin Luther King Jr. that spoke of civil rights for African Americans, and yet there are leaders we do not mention or have yet to see for other countless minority groups and unspoken issues. Also, Churchill mentions " 'assimilation' " (541), which was forced upon Native Americans in order for them to conform to the pressures of society. Even by today's standards there is a degree of assimilation for nealry every minority group in order to gain acceptance or measure up to the dominant culuture's lifestyle.

It is also interesting to see the connection that Churchill makes between the Jewish Holocoust in 1940s Germany, to America's 1800s genocide of Natives. America's reputation as world peacemaker is a facade because we do not like to admit our faults in history to the world and yet we force upon our authority to other wrong doers. I agree that America had the right idea in going into Germany to free genocide victims and punish those who committed those hainess crimes but we cannot forget that we are not the leaders of innocence.