My Reflection On My Research Paper

I feel that my research paper, which explains the negative effects of Native American mascots and logos, has many strong points. The strongest and most prominent point that I made in my research paper was that Native American mascots have damaging psychological and physical effects on Native Americans.  The reason that this is my most prominent point is because there are so many ways in which these mascots negatively affect Native Americans, which include a feeling of shame toward their culture, high suicide, dropout, and unemployment rates. My second strongest point is that Native American mascots have many negative effects on non-Native Americans as well.  Some of these effects are a perpetuation of racism and ignorance in non-Native Americans toward Native Americans. Non-Native Americans have been exposed to these stereotypes of Native Americans their entire life and do not know any better than to accept such depictions of Native Americans as factual representations, which makes it hard for many of them to recognize the problem with their use. Another key point that I made in my paper was when I explained how names such as “redskins” and “Indians,” which are nicknames for some sports teams today, have negative origins and how Native American mascots and logos are racist. I highlighted the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo logo, which is included in my visual, and used it to make this point. In another part of my paper I drew a comparison between the stereotypical depiction of Native Americans such as the Chief Wahoo logo that are considered socially acceptable and similar stereotypical depictions of other ethnic groups that are considered taboo. Some of my lesser points include reasons why more is not being done to eliminate Native American mascots and how these reasons are flawed as well as highlighting some positive things that are being done. Throughout my research paper I also tear apart a few counterarguments. I feel that I was confident in my analysis and that I made the argument while allowing my sources to help reinforce it.  I feel that I could have incorporated a few more counterarguments and tore them apart which would have made my argument even stronger.