After watching the movie, "In Whose Honor", I began to ask myself a lot of questions. When watching, I understood the hardships and pain Charlene was going through as she felt as if her heritage and culture was being mocked and torn apart. Watching traditional dances and attire being used in an inappropriate fashion clearly caused her and her family a lot of heartache. However, I do believe that there are two sides and multiple interpretations of each scenario. Growing up, my high school's mascot was the "Braves". Throughout our school you could find pictures of the "Braves" Indian Head posted on hallways and enlarged completely on one side of the gymnasium. This logo was also marked on school shirts and other attire used for fundraisers and such. Being apart of my school district since I was in Kindergarten, I began to love and appreciate the "Braves". Throughout my entire schooling career, I never once thought of it as being offensive and disrespectful to the Indian culture. On the contrary, we were embracing the "Braves". The "Braves" head stood as a symbol of honor, strength and tradition in my school and we all took it very seriously. Eventually, the idea that this could be mocking certain students culture came to the school board, as our school was required to take a vote as to which mascot we would now like to represent our school. Huge outrage and discontent spread about the student body as people now were offended that others can think of the Braves being represented in this way. The Indian head was no co-opted to represent honor of our school. Yes, the meaning did change, however no negative connotations were involved.

I think this is a very sticky subject, because although the indian head was not used to represent traditional Indian American culture, it still represented honor and tradition for our school. The implications were not meant to offend anyone, if anything it was meant to make the entire school and student body proud. For situations like these, I at times think that others are being to sensitive. At least within my high school, no one mocked the indian head, no one made fun of it, in fact everything was quite to the contrary. It was revered and looked highly upon. After much discontent, my school district revoked any further advancements of changing our school mascot, but instead went from "Braves" to "Brave" to remove any connection to actual Indian American tribes. Although there is still discontent amongst a few, I think when there are two sides to an issue or debate there is always going to be discontent amongst a few, and it will be impossible to always make everyone happy.