By Olivia A. Cole for The Daily Dot, with permission
Too many conversations destined for doom begin with sentences like this: “We were all fine with it back in the good old days!” Matthew McConaughey has found himself bathed in unwelcome limelight after expressing something similar: his desire for the Redskins‘ mascot (which has come under fire for its racist implications) to remain unchanged. In an interview with GQ, the actor said:
“What interests me is how quickly it got pushed into the social consciousness. We were all fine with it since the 1930s, and all of a sudden we go, ‘No, gotta change it’? It seems like when the first levee breaks, everybody gets on board. I know a lot of Native Americans don’t have a problem with it, but they’re not going to say, ‘No, we really want the name.’ That’s not how they’re going to use their pulpit.”
These comments come after much commentary—online and offline—about the 81-year-old mascot, an image that has prompted articles and T-shirts alike as a part of the discussion around changing the name. Native American activists and journalists have stepped forward to express their disapproval of the mascot. As writer and citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation Simon Moya-Smith, in his article on CNN, argued, “When the status of a Native American is demoted to that of a caricature, we are objectified and diminished as a people. We become entertainment, not fellow citizens. How are you supposed to take me seriously if all you see is the stereotypical image of the Hollywood or sports mascot Indian?”
But McConaughey, like many white Americans who have the luxury of not finding their culture and identity stereotyped and dehumanized for entertainment, shrugs off this perspective. Of the mascot, he says: “I love the emblem. I dig it. It gives me a little fire and some oomph.” The enjoyment of the Redskins mascot at the expense of those who it causes pain is acceptable, McConaughey’s logic goes, because “we were all fine with it since the 1930s.” But the “we” he refers to here is very specific, and so is the attitude behind that “we.”
Nostalgic reminiscence about the past is one of the key concepts in white supremacist wishful thinking. McConaughey is not alone in his wistful longing for a time when white people could use whatever slurs they wanted without being troubled by brown people’s dissent. What those who make statements like this think they’re saying is, “I long for the days when people didn’t get offended so easily.” But what they’re really saying—the phrase translated to account for privilege-induced historical blindness—is, “I long for the days when the people my racism offended didn’t have a voice.”
The oppressed didn’t always have a platform, as we know. Before the Civil Rights Movement, it was easy for white Americans to ignore the issues facing people of color: Jim Crow laws, media whitewashing, and segregation easily enforced “out of sight, out of mind,” enabling whites to live their lives insulated from non-whites—insulation that unfortunately persists today. Media played a role in the turning point for demanding attention to the problems of racism and oppression in the United States, particularly with the widespread coverage of events such as the famous desegregation of Little Rock High School and marches led by Martin Luther King, Jr.