"Redface" caricatures that would not now be tolerated if they portrayed other racial or ethnic groups are institutionalized in our school and university systems, youth organizations, sports franchises, and media outlets. They form part of a larger system of commodified representations that are perpetuated, as well, by the tourism industry (with its teepees and totem poles, its kivas and kachinas), the U.S. military (with its Apache, Chinook, and Black Hawk helicopters), and the auto industry. As Rosemary Coombe notes of the latter, it is "inconceivable that a vehicle could be marketed as 'a wandering Jew,' but North Americans rarely bat an eyelash when a Jeep Cherokee passes them on the road or an advertisement for a Pontiac flashes across their television screen."
"THE MASCOT SLOT: Cultural Citizenship, Political Correctness, and Pseudo-Indian Sports Symbols"
Pauline Turner Strong