Native American Ethos Pathos Logos

As people, like myself, who aren’t oppressed for their skin color, culture, or religion, it’s hard to sometimes understand what it feels like to have someone appropriate their livelihood, more specifically, someone who is appropriating someone else’s culture. I imagine it, on a much smaller scale, to be like doing a group project, but one is doing all the work and the others take all the credit. The result would be one not receiving any of the rewards. People would call them “creative” and “hard-working”, when in reality, they just showed up and didn’t contribute anything at all. Amy Stretten’s “Appropriating Native American Imagery Honors No One” provides a multitude of resources that go along with her main point of why appropriating the Native

She even describes what that experience in the school environment was like for her. This tactic directly coincides with pathos, one of the modes of persuasion. Her purpose of creating this article goes along with wanting to persuade those who engage in using offensive Native American imagery to realize why it’s harmful and offensive. By using pathos, she’s able to get inside the reader’s emotions to feel some of the feelings she had to feel as she grew up. The essay only includes a brief description of her perspective in attending a school that had a Native American mascot, but the way she writes about how she was silenced with her opinion by staff would raise questions for people who believe that everyone should have a voice. Even more so if that voice is directly affected by said mascot. The author goes on to speak about how she purposely missed her high school reunion because of the plans that was rumored to be happening. The plan involved an alumni student painting a warrior face on the gym to commemorate their old mascot. Some may see this as harmless, but the mascot was eventually changed years ago, when they still attended – so why would that be necessary? I agree that the mascot should have been changed, but some may still finish this article and wonder how and why it offended her so thoroughly. Adding more

Facts are presented throughout the writing from reputable sources. For instance, American Psychology Association (APA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are among those sources. One can argue all day with someone else’s point of view, but it’s nearly impossible to dispute facts. The site that she used from APA discusses why there are harmful results with the use of racist mascots. Looking farther into the source, it would have been useful for Stretten to include not only the mere fact that the mascot should be retired but why. APA goes deeper by explaining the reason it hurts Native Americans, especially children. When these children see such harmful stereotypes, they think that non-Natives only see them as those stereotypes and nothing else. Most of the imagery that goes alongside the stereotypes are negative, so a negative viewing of a whole culture is not going to end well for anyone. Their self-esteem can, and will, plummet because of this problem (APA). Though I concede that Stretten should’ve used more information from their site, I insist that she still managed to get her point across to