Blackhawks know nothing about Black Hawk

Origin of a name:  Blackhawks name founded in history, controversy

Some of American Indian heritage hope playoff push offers teaching moment about Chief Black Hawk

By Ron GrossmanCyndee Fox-Starr, whose father played in the 1950s for a local hockey team in full Indian headdress, is rooting for the Hawks but hopes the playoffs will provide a teachable moment.

"Maybe others will see we're a people, not mascots," said Fox-Starr, who is of Omaha and Odawa Indian parentage.

Fox-Starr is special events coordinator at the American Indian Center on West Wilson Avenue in Chicago, where it has been a season of mixed emotions. Some patrons and staff are hockey fans. Others who don't follow the sport are rooting for the home team out of civic pride—but with a tinge of sadness when they see the Indian-head logo on players' jerseys.

"I'm excited for the franchise," said Negwes White, 23, a youth worker at the center. "But I don't think Blackhawks fans have any understanding of our culture."

Blackhawks management's policy is not to comment on the issue. But in the team's clubhouse, the Blackhawk Indian logo is held sacred. No one steps on it, and it's kept illuminated. A few years ago, former coach Denis Savard backtracked on his use of the phrase "commit to the Indian" when trying to rally the team. But loyal fans repeat it with gusto.And:Even Chicagoans of American Indian descent can be stumped by the question of who Black Hawk was and what he did.

"I don't know anything about him," said Alex Figueroa, 13. A member of the Taino tribe, he was shooting baskets with other young American Indians in an alley behind the Indian Center in Uptown. "We didn't learn about him in school."And:Even though the Blackhawks' use of the logo has been more subtle, it troubles Fox-Starr when she sees fans wearing war bonnets. She is bothered when crowds at sporting events clap in Indian rhythms, which have a religious significance.

"Each drumbeat signifies a heartbeat," she said.Comment:  Blackhawk players respect "the Indian" so much that they won't step on his image. Blackhawk fans chant "commit to the Indian." Their idea of "the Indian" is a orange-skinned "brave" in facepaint. They wear warbonnets and clap in some weird tribal rite to show their love of this "Indian."

Meanwhile, they don't have a clue about the real Chief Black Hawk. They're in love with a fantasy figure, a cartoon image, and they couldn't care less about real Indians. If a descendant of Black Hawk protested the mascot, they'd tell him to go to hell.

This is pretty much the mascot debate in a nutshell. Mascot supporters cherish their stereotypical notion of Indians as primitive people of the past. Like children and Dudesons, it's all they know about Indians.

In contrast, real Indians are a complete void to them: unknown, invisible, and not worth thinking about. So fans "honor" them by ignoring them. By preferring their romanticized, idealized Indians of yesteryear to the complex, conflicted Indians of today.

For more on the subject, see Team Names and Mascots.

P.S. Black Hawk is another Indian chief immortalized as a killer weapon system--the helicopter immortalized in Black Hawk Down.

Below:  The real Black Hawk:



And the fictional one: