Stereotyping, a pervasive social phenomenon, has a particularly insidious impact on marginalized groups. In nations grappling with legacies of persecution, oppression, slavery, or genocide inflicted upon ethnic minorities, the dominant culture often cultivates prejudiced attitudes towards the victimized group. This prejudice serves as a self-serving justification for the actions of the oppressor, rationalizing historical injustices and perpetuating cycles of inequality. This is the context within which stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, and racism exist toward Native Americans, in a nation built upon a foundation of oppression and, in many cases, genocide. Despite the clear historical context, research specifically addressing racism against Native Americans remains surprisingly limited.
The impact of racial prejudice and stereotyping as a barrier in the American Indian educational experience, for instance, is an under-researched area. Studies on intergroup dynamics, however, provide a relevant framework. Research has shown that when one group is instructed to inflict pain or harm upon another, the "victim" group is often verbally derogated and dehumanized by the "oppressor" group. This process of dehumanization allows the "exploiters" to avoid confronting their own culpability. By developing negative attitudes towards their victims, they can rationalize their actions and justify further exploitation. In essence, negative stereotypes and attitudes toward Native Americans have historically served a similar function: to shield the historical oppressors from guilt over the atrocities committed against Native populations and to provide a justification for continued exploitation and marginalization.
Native Americans, like other ethnic minorities in America, are acutely aware of the negative evaluations of their ethnic group perpetuated by the majority white culture. This awareness can have a profound impact on identity formation and self-esteem. Studies on minority identity formation have revealed that African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans all grapple with negative stereotypes imposed by the dominant culture, which often denigrates the very aspects of their ethnic culture that they hold most dear. These imposed stereotypes can erode cultural pride and contribute to feelings of alienation and marginalization.
How are Native Americans affected by stereotyping? One study investigated the experiences of Native American students in higher education, utilizing archival data, surveys, interviews, and observations. The findings revealed that Native American college students frequently encountered stereotyping and racism early in their formal schooling. Throughout their college experience, these students faced personal, institutional, and other forms of indirect racism. The study underscored the significant emotional and academic toll that this constant exposure to prejudice took on Native American students at an urban university where they were a minority. The pressures of navigating a predominantly white institution while simultaneously confronting prejudice and discrimination created a hostile and unwelcoming environment for many students.
Another study focused on the experiences, perceptions, and consequences of campus racism among a sample of Northern Plains Native Americans attending a small Midwestern university. This research employed both quantitative and qualitative methods to gather comprehensive data on the challenges faced by Native American students. Information was collected on cultural, social, academic, and financial problems, as well as experiences of cultural conflict, relationships with other Native and non-Native students, evaluations of the college experience, and major concerns encountered during their college years.
The study revealed that racism toward Native American students often manifested as verbal attacks, with more traditionally oriented students being particularly sensitive to racial comments. Non-Native students frequently resorted to name-calling and racial slurs rooted in prevalent stereotypes. Although the sample size was relatively small, a majority of the Native students interviewed reported perceiving the campus setting as a hostile environment. Some students expressed feelings of being outsiders and unwelcome within the college community. This sense of alienation and marginalization highlights the persistent challenges faced by Native American students in navigating predominantly white academic spaces.
Research on the adverse outcomes of negative stereotypes on the functioning of minorities in America is extensive. Nowhere are such negative appraisals of minority groups more blatant and pervasive than in the mascots and Native American names used by sports teams that proliferate throughout the American education system. While other minority groups in America are subjected to negative stereotypes, Native Americans are uniquely singled out as the only minority group whose stereotypes are actively advertised and promoted in federally and state-funded colleges and universities.
The use of Native American mascots is argued to perpetuate and reinforce dehumanizing stereotypes that originated among European colonizers centuries ago. These mascots are harmful to both Native and non-Native individuals. Native Americans endure the psychological burden of seeing cartoonish caricatures of themselves embodied in these mascots, representing a profound form of dehumanization. Native American mascots also negatively impact non-Native individuals by perpetuating stereotypes that prevent students from gaining an accurate understanding of American history and the complex relationship between Native and European Americans throughout the post-contact era. By normalizing these stereotypes, mascots contribute to a distorted and incomplete understanding of Native American cultures and histories.
From a Social Dominance Theory (SDT) perspective, the continued use of Native mascots constitutes a form of social dominance, acting as a "hierarchy-enhancing" force to maintain the inequality between the dominant group of European Americans and the subordinate group of Native Americans. SDT posits that organized hierarchies of socially constructed groups exist in societies, with one or more dominant groups enjoying disproportionate levels of power and status relative to one or more subordinate groups. This inequality is perpetuated through a psychological mechanism known as social dominance orientation (SDO), which reflects the degree to which group-based forms of dominance and inequality are favored. SDO manifests through psychological tendencies for prejudice, cultural ideologies, and discriminatory behaviors that collectively maintain social group hierarchies.
SDT and SDO help explain social statuses and academic achievement gaps between groups, ethnic and cultural inequalities, favoritism for high-status groups, and personal and institutional discrimination. Native American activist groups have consistently called for professional and college teams to change their names, denouncing them as pejorative, derogatory, offensive, and racist. They argue that these names contribute to negative stereotypes and acts of discrimination against Native people. How are Native Americans affected by stereotyping?
Professional and college teams often counter these arguments by claiming that the names promote positive attributes of Native Americans, such as pride and courage, and that the names and mascots honor Native people and educate the public about Native American tribes. However, there is a lack of published empirical research investigating whether or how Native team mascots affect stereotyping, prejudice, or discrimination in either direction.
Furthermore, the impact of endorsement of team names and mascots by some Native people on stereotypes, prejudice, and in-group/out-group dynamics remains unexplored. In contexts where cultural in-groups and out-groups exist, concepts derived from Social Identity Theory (SIT), such as in-group bias and out-group homogeneity effect, provide a framework for studying prejudice and discrimination surrounding the team mascot issue.
The in-group bias refers to the tendency for groups to show favoritism towards members of their own social group over other groups. SIT suggests that people are motivated by the need to feel positive self-esteem, leading to the belief that their own groups are superior to others. Consequently, individuals tend to evaluate in-group members, and by extension themselves, more positively than members of other groups. Studies have consistently demonstrated that individuals allocate more rewards and resources to in-group members compared to out-group members.
Out-group homogeneity refers to the tendency for group members to perceive their own group as more diverse and variable than members of other groups. This effect can be attributed to greater contact with in-group members, leading to a wider range of exemplars. Alternatively, individuals may perceive out-group members as more similar to their stereotypes for that group, contributing to the out-group homogeneity effect.
Based on these concepts within SIT, predictions can be made about the effects of social categorizations (e.g., non-Native vs. Native, pro-mascot vs. anti-mascot) on the level of prejudice and discrimination for these in-group/out-group dynamics. According to SIT, in simple categorization situations, perceivers engage in social comparison processes, assessing perceived in-group/out-group similarities while seeking positive distinctiveness for the in-group to achieve a positive self-evaluation. This process accounts for the discrimination that occurs when evaluating members of other groups.
In a multiple categorization situation, SIT would predict an additive combination of tendencies to discriminate, with double in-groups receiving the most positive rating, double out-groups the most negative, and partial groups somewhere in the middle. While social comparison suggests that the degree of similarity between groups leads to the additive tendency to discriminate, partial group members are still discriminated against due to the presence of at least one out-group factor. How are Native Americans affected by stereotyping?
Social Dominance Theory (SDT) extends the idea that in-group bias and out-group homogeneity effect are attempts to achieve positive group distinctiveness, positing that there may also be a desire for group-based forms of inequality and dominance. Thus, patterns of in-group bias may also serve the function of perpetuating existing group-based hierarchies.
In conclusion, How are Native Americans affected by stereotyping? Stereotyping has detrimental effects on Native Americans. These effects can manifest in various ways, including academic, social, and emotional challenges. Stereotyping leads to negative evaluations of their ethnic group by the majority white culture and perpetuates discrimination and inequality.
