On June 1st, 2025, Lotus Music & Dance hosted the 23rd Drums Along the Hudson Pow Wow celebration at Inwood Hill Park. All the expected amenities were acknowledged: traditional foods, storytelling, music and dance with audience participation, and souvenir vendors.
Besides The Three Sisters, beans-corn-squash maybe some maple syrup and honey, bison, nuts berries, there were opportunities to explore important issues. With the Native American motif ban controversy presently before all New York citizens, opinions from indigenous people are relevant.
In 2023, the New York State Board of Regents banned the use of Indigenous names, mascots, and logos by public schools, effective May 3, 2023. This ban requires schools to remove such imagery by the end of the 2024-25 school year.
Questions Before Indigenous People
Do you approve of sports and schools being honored with virtuous Native American namesakes such as representations of courage, bravery or valor, or are you opposed and find these references inappropriate and stereotypical?
For example, a Warrior could be a logo for a sports team with players donning equipment with a tribal headdress, Roman or Viking helmet, African spear or Samurai sword, whereas Chief or Brave or Redskin (self named by Native Americans) are North American Indigenous specific.
Do other cultures find similar terms offensive? The Fighting Sioux – The Fighting Irish – The Haʻa koa Hawaiian warriors?
Contrary to what we hear from non-indigenous activists that most Native Americans are offended, at this event, there was not only a positive reaction from performers that school and sports motifs honor their culture but there was a serious concern that removing these motifs will not only erase tribal history, but some local tribes completely.
One Native American among the crowd makes the observation, “These are the same lost people who support the idea that if a woman says she is a man and gets pregnant then a man got pregnant. It’s the same with men beating up women in sports.”
This WOKE line of thought reveals not merely illogical thinking, but for them signifies, a revelation, exultation, clever proof of their superior intelligence and morality that the public must accept, if not forcibly glorify. And so, all manner of indecency is acceptable, including threats and violence to any who oppose them if ridicule fails such as “You are not a real Native American if you do not agree with us and be offended.” Unfortunately, many Native Americans acquiesce.
Someone pointed out that tribal councils shamed fellow councils into agreeing that the “Fighting Sioux” should be changed to the “Fighting Hawks” which begs the question that if Fighting Hawks is not suggestive of Native Americans then it sounds ridiculous, and if it does represent indigenous fighting spirit, then you are back where you started.
“Warrior for Peace,” Jeremiah Wolf (Iroquois, Mohawk) of the Haudenosaunee Dancers and Singers believes there should be discussions to address these issues, and find beneficial solutions.
The Cause
Bandwagon Activism supports pseudo morality. These WOKE do not care about indigenous people, and that is why they believe they know what is better for Native Americans than Native Americans. Real tribal contributions are lost in fantasy. The mythical romance of The Great Peace, Tee-Pee or Longhouse life, and mystic paradise imaginings of Native Americans living at one with nature is their excuse. Despite some legitimate foundations that do deserve celebration, this one-side-only view overpowers some realities of primitive life, and disregards every aspect of living, from harsh environments to blood-feuds, wars, and unfortunate instances of ritual cannibalism and human sacrifice.
However, true contributions as basic as an east-coast medicine-man’s Pine Needle Tea treatments for sailors with scurvy, to the Oneida who fought alongside the colonists in the revolutionary war, to the high honors for the WWII Navajo Wind Talkers become buried by activist ignorance and aggression.
The so-called “Culture Protecting Activists” redefine virtue, so any representation of indigenous peoples’ courage, bravery or honor are labeled as stereotype. They offer perpetual “Victimhood” as a replacement for virtues that are universal and eternal. Mostly “non-indigenous” activists would proudly erase the last vestige of integrity and identity in Native American Culture in their search for purpose and self-worth.
How It Came To This
The anti-motif Native American activists refute factual knowledge, history and experience, which blinds them. They can be manipulated by those clever enough to access their fears, hubris, and other weaknesses with half-truths if not complete falsehoods. It then follows they are emboldened by the thrill of the mob. They slip further from reality and truth as they become intellectually stymied, illogical, and closed to all other forms of information and learning. No longer individuals but a collective of marionettes controlled by opportunist designers, they believe and need only repeat what their political masters and sponsored media dictate to find belonging and comfort. Often, the most obvious of absurdities are decorated in nonsensical wordplay and indignation, like men getting pregnant.
The Board Of “Rejects” And Governor Kathy “Hokum’s” Ban
“New York education officials described the mascot ban as part of an effort to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in schools. It came amid a broader national movement to eliminate logos and nicknames that Native American people may find disrespectful.”
For these officials, their political image rests on their performance of caring, of an emotional show of concern, but that image is proved false when they refuse to alter course whenever their policies fail or their agenda proves destructive. What will the New York Courts decide? How will President Donald Trump weigh in? Will the United States Supreme Court decide?
