Amp and I were talking about this the other night in regard to certain depictions of gnomes… money-grubbing, big-eared, big-nosed, diminutive critters who look like Jews… see also: Ferengi.

I think that Tolkien himself made the same reference in relation to his dwarves.

Hope that helps.

I have always considered these team names as racist, stereotypical insults to Indians/Native Americans.

Oh well, they’re just Indians.

So invisible in the land that used to be theirs.

Here is a clip to view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wmOEvTk804

One of the commentors in that 5-minute clip stated that America’s “valorizing” Columbus and making him a hero was similar to teaching that Nazi Germany’s Himmler was to be held up as a hero to German citizens, both Gentile and Jew, in 21ST Century Germany.

This would be tantamount to valorizing the savagery of Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman, Cole Blease, and Strom Thurmond being held up as heroes to black Americans.

I’m sure the Native Americans of today are so very thankful for all that the great ‘Admiral of the Sea’ has done for them and the horrific destruction that his appearance in this hemisphere set into motion over 500 years ago.

Black Americans and Native Americans have the most hateful stereotypes directed at them more than any other group in America:

htpp://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/06/04/petitions

What does that mean, though? If it’s an association I make only if prompted by an external agent, what then?

Now that you posted this and I agreed with you, I can’t make my mind flexible enough to try it. But I’m really curious as to whether a different post would have been able to convince me that the image matched a stereotype picture of a different class entirely.

Because, after all, if they’re bloodthirsty savages, then killing them and taking their land isn’t really genocide, it’s self-defense.

This is also why, I think, there are so many Native American sports mascots, and why so many people feel compelled to defend those mascots by saying, “but, it’s an honor!” It’s because to their way of thinking, it is an honor. They’re saying that Native Americans are courageous and strong fighters . . . which is the flip side of being bloodthirsty savages.

It’s disgusting, in any case.

My high school mascot was the Vallejo High Apache, and you can be assured, I raised holy hell about it when I was there. Didn’t get much changed, but it was hell that needed raising.

Native Americans, not trolls btw.

I’ve seen the commerical…I dont see much of anything but trollish features, though I can see where it does resemble caracatures. Which I hate with a bloody passion.

If your gorilla generally does ‘gorilla things,’ then I think it’s okay race-wise (Although probably tacky. Don’t use gorillas.).

Agreed. Chimps, though…chimps can be pretty funny.

That is, I do not think it is racism to make a troll that happens to look like charactures of American Indians, rather the racism is making chacatures of American Indians that look like trolls.

Right. That’s exactly what I was trying to say. I agree completely.

I think it’s the standard depiction of Native Americans as looking like trolls that’s racist, not the depiction of trolls as looking like trolls.

I mean, hey, the dude’s got tusks. What can you do?

I see that’s what Decnavda said in the second sentence of #2.