Global sport's problem with the appropriation of Indigenous culture

The Washington Football Team changed its name after 50 years of protests.

The year 2020 put the issue of race front and center of political and societal debate.

The killing of George Floyd also forced many sport teams that utilize Native American heritage to review that association -- be it their name or logo.

Washington has changed its logo and is now known as the Washington Football Team. Additionally, the Kansas City Chiefs in the NFL, the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves in the MLB, and the Chicago Blackhawks in the NHL have all looked inwards and made changes.

Changes also came in Canada. In July, the Edmonton Eskimos football team announced that the team would retire the "Eskimos" name.

The Inuit -- Indigenous People of the Canadian Arctic -- often take offense at the term "Eskimo."

"While many fans are deeply committed to keeping the name, others are increasingly uncomfortable with the moniker," said the club in an official statement.

The club said it had engaged with Inuit communities in recent years to discuss the name and felt now the time was right to change it.

The team has retained its recognizable "EE" logo, but is yet to choose a new name. For the moment, the club is called the Edmonton Football Team or the EE Football Team.

While originally a placeholder name, Washington president Jason Wright said the "Football Team" name may remain the team's long-term name.

But across the rest of the world, notably in Latin America, there's arguably been less willingness to engage with the idea of what these associations potentially mean for Indigenous communities.

In Latin America, it isn't just the sporting world turning its back on Indigenous communities. According to a study prepared for the UN, poverty rates, morbidity rates and infant mortality rates are all higher among Indigenous people in Latin American than the non-Indigenous.

For Native Americans, the use -- and abuse -- of their images, likenesses and culture in sports is a contemporary form of the marginalization they have historically experienced.

The director of First Peoples Worldwide Carla Fredericks told CNN that a lot of the offense caused is due to false representation and outright racism.

"Of course, in the US, Native Americans have endured a really brutal history of colonization, marginalization, and so on," she says.

"And one of the kind of end results about that is that Americans really don't have a good grip on who contemporary Native American people are and so the only representative of us is the representation that we see in sport -- for many people.

"And obviously that's troubling because that's a caricatured representation and not an accurate representation of living, breathing cultures."

The use of indigenous culture in sport is, therefore, an act that reminds Native Americans of their historic oppression at the hands of colonizers.

There is also evidence to suggest that caricaturing Indigenous culture in sports causes depression, low self-esteem, substance abuse and even suicide among Native American youth.

According to a study prepared for the UN, poverty rates, morbidity rates and infant mortality rates are all higher among Indigenous people in Latin American than the non-Indigenous.

Fredericks adds that "the notion of consent and stakeholder engagement" -- or lack thereof -- is central to the issue too.

She says consent is key when considering the acceptability of the use of Indigenous Peoples' culture, pointing to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

"I think the right approach at this point in time is really to seek counsel from those communities and ask them, you know, 'Where do you stand on this? Is this something that you appreciate? Is it something that is harmful to you?'"

The issue has long been the focal point of media and activist attention in the US, particularly over professional sports franchises. But it is not a uniquely American issue, and it is not a social phenomenon that affects just Native Americans. It is a global problem, and one that affects Indigenous people around the world.

The story beyond North America

The Exeter Chiefs rugby union team in the UK, the KAA Gent soccer team in Belgium and the Kaizer Chiefs soccer team in South Africa all use a Native American man in headdress as their logos.

While teams in the US are reviewing and removing similar logos and names, these teams have each chosen to keep their logo. This is in spite of public pressure in some cases.

The logos of soccer teams Kaizer Chiefs in South Africa, KAA Gent in Belgium and rugby team Exeter Chiefs in the UK all have a Native American wearing a headdress.

A recent petition, launched by an Exeter fan named Ash Green, asked the Exeter Chiefs to change its "harmful use of Indigenous Peoples' imagery and branding." It initially gained 3,700 signatures and the club announced its board would meet to discuss a rebranding.

However, that meeting resulted in only the retirement of the team's mascot, "Big Chief." The club released a statement saying that the logo would remain, and that the board took the view that it was "in fact highly respectful."

As for the "Chiefs" name, the club said that the name "dated back into the early 1900s and had a long history with people in the Devon area," the English county in which Exeter lies.

The Exeter Chiefs for Change, a group campaigning for the club to change its name and remove references to Native American culture, released a statement labeling the decision as "incredibly disappointing," and that the club had "thrown away an opportunity to show itself as an inclusive club."

"We accept that the intention of the club for the branding was originally positive and not derogatory," they continued. "But now they know it is not perceived in that way, they are making a conscious decision to be intentionally offensive by continuing to use it."

The group concluded its statement saying that they were "horrified" and that "the decision will not age well."

In their statement, the Chiefs said the club will be making no further comment on the matter.

Exeter Chiefs rugby team has retired its mascot "Big Chief" but will not remove the "Chiefs" part of its name.

KAA Gent has an extensive section on its website that speaks to the historic oppression and present-day struggle of Native Americans.

It also explains the history of the club's logo, and that the cultural context was "a positive one."

It says that the club represents "respect, courage and honor. Values that they attributed to the Native Americans rather than to their White oppressor."

Despite acknowledging the potential offense that its logo may cause, the club explains that it chooses to retain the logo as it "draws attention throughout Europe to the social situation facing the Native American population today."

KAA Gent acknowledge potential offense the team's logo can cause, but said it would remain the club's logo.

In addition, the club says through its foundation, it is "willing to investigate, along with representatives of the Native American population, if and how KAA Gent can organize a social partnership with an initiative in the United States that aims to bring about an improvement in the standard of living experienced by Native Americans, using football as a powerful instrument."

CNN was told by the club that it reached out to "some [Native American] organizations/representatives" via Facebook in 2018 but received no rejection or acceptance of an "exchange of views."

The club says if a Native American organization did reach out, representatives "would listen respectfully and try to establish such a partnership for the future."

CNN contacted Kaizer Chiefs but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

The Latin American story

In Latin America, there is a case to be made that not only do the clubs not engage with Indigenous communities, but actively ignore scrutiny of practices. Only two of the five Latin American clubs contacted for this story responded to CNN.

Guarani people are indigenous to South America, and live in Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia.

The Guarani people represent the largest indigenous group in Brazil with a population of 51,000.

They are one of the most vulnerable Indigenous groups in the world. In 2013, it was found that Guarani people suffer a murder rate four times higher than the national homicide rate in Brazil, according to the Brazilian non-governmental organization CIMI.

Most of their land was taken from them during the twentieth century, and they have an unequaled suicide rate in South America