---
title: Documentary Calls Foul Against Racist Sports Mascots
date: 2024-02-06T05:30:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/documentary-calls-foul-against-racist-sports-mascots"
section: Articles
---
# Documentary Calls Foul Against Racist Sports Mascots

*February 6, 2024* — by [Annie Krakower](/author/annie-krakower)


> UMD Professor Co-Produces Film on Efforts to End Co-opting of Native American Names and Images

*Imagining the Indian 3 scaled 1920x1080 — The group Arizona to Rally Against Native Mascots protests in Phoenix. The documentary “Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting,” co-produced by Professor of the Practice Kevin Blackistone, details similar efforts nationwide to eradicate Indigenous imagery in sports.*

As fans cheer on the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, another group will also gather at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas to make their voices heard: [Not in Our Honor](https://notinourhonor.com/), a Kansas City coalition dedicated to ending the cultural appropriation of Native American people, plans to protest the AFC champions’ name, logo and chants.

The demonstration is part of a larger movement to eradicate Indigenous imagery throughout sports, an effort detailed in the documentary “[Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting.](https://imaginingtheindianfilm.org/)” Co-produced by University of Maryland journalism Professor of the Practice and ESPN panelist Kevin Blackistone, it becomes available on Tuesday to stream on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.

“I think we served a real educational purpose,” Blackistone said of the film, which explores the origins of Native American stereotypes and the national reckoning about racial injustice in athletics. “(Many sports fans) did not realize the genocide that Indigenous people suffered in this country and the way that they have been used and abused and had their culture misappropriated over the years.”

Blackistone was first inspired to create the documentary in 2014, when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office [canceled](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/us-patent-office-cancels-redskins-trademark-registration-says-name-is-disparaging/2014/06/18/e7737bb8-f6ee-11e3-8aa9-dad2ec039789_story.html) the then-Washington Redskins’ trademark registration, calling the football team’s name and logo disparaging. (The team ultimately stopped using the name in 2020 and was renamed the Commanders in 2022.)


*group poses wearing shirts that read, "Not a mascot" — Producer Kevin Blackistone and Director Ben West with Yocha Dehe members at California Native American Day in Sacramento, Calif.*




**Topics:** [Arts & Culture](https://today.umd.edu/tags/arts-culture)


**Tags:** [Athletics](https://today.umd.edu/topic/athletics-tag), [Arts](https://today.umd.edu/topic/arts)


**Units:** [Philip Merrill College of Journalism](https://today.umd.edu/topic/philip-merrill-college-journalism)