A College Named Sue

I recently bought my dad (staunch Republican) the Hillary Clinton nutcracker. Around her feet, I sprinkled almonds, walnuts, and hazelnuts, and then wrote in black sharpie the names of his 2008 political contenders (Mitt, Rudy, John, Fred, Mike). When dad retired a couple years back, I got him traditional emblems of what’s next: a word-find puzzle book and a latch hook rug (palm tree).  For past father’s day gifts, the kitsch included a radio controlled sports car, a branding iron with his name (DAN), and a bank shaped as a black box where a dismembered hand reached up to pluck coins.

Dad’s response to these gifts varies. He enjoys the amusement they provide his young grandchildren (bank). The gifts also bring attention from the neighbors (sports car in Mrs. Chatt’s flower bed). When I cackled at his attempts to work the yarn around the latch hook, he chased me around the house and cursed my name (S.O.B.).

Despite the laughs, inside these gifts lives a darker humor. They reinforce cultural stereotypes: That men take pleasure in the crude and childish, that retirement brings useless time-filling crafts, and that a strong, intelligent woman (Hillary) emasculates men.

Perpetuating such stereotypes is easy when you are a dominatrix like me. This confession should not shock. My dad is a dominatrix even more powerful than me.

Please stop picturing us in leather. As dominatrices, my dad and I fall into categories that place us in the power-wielding center of our dominant culture: white (Anglo Saxon), male, owning class, heterosexual, Christian, college educated, U.S. citizen, English as a first language…to name a few. Because Dad is married (Hi, Mom), not a vegetarian (beans are a blast), and resides in the suburbs in a prominent state (I ? NY), his dominance tops mine, even if my age knocks him down a peg. In spite of the fine points, dad and I both exist in the safety of the dominant culture, which gives us unearned power over those who fall into excluded categories.

As a self-proclaimed dominatrix, I know many unaware North Dakotans (closeted dominatrices) who need a good spanking. The first crack of my whip would raise welts on the UND supporters who lament the loss of their Fighting Sioux mascot.

As you all know on October 26th, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the University of North Dakota settled a lawsuit regarding the policy prohibiting American Indian nicknames, images, and mascots from championships. UND agreed to a three year timetable to obtain tribal approval for the nickname and image. If unable to obtain approval, the university will transition to a new nickname and logo.

For many UND alumni, campus officials, students, boosters, and fans, the settlement brought anger (“war cries” presumably). Yet anger is the easy choice for a dominatrix.
When we exist in dominant groups but are unaware of that status (sometimes even if we are aware), we can feel that it’s okay to appropriate excluded group images as our own (American Indian mascots, minstrel shows, baggy jeans and bling). This power-over status is the dominant group’s privilege.

When an excluded group calls us out on our privilege, we respond in several common ways: anger (UND’s loss of tradition), justification (UND’s programs for American Indians), alliances (UND’s logo designed by an American Indian), or defiance (UND’s refusal to alter marble floors at the Engelsted arena). 

But anger usually goes deeper

As a dominatrix, I can be sensitive to some areas of dominance (class) and even more sensitive to my few excluded categories (marital status). The sensitivity we feel, that often comes out as anger, masks a deeper shame. We can feel shame about where we grew up, or our economic class, or our educational background, or all three (“you might be a redneck if…”). Even as categories shift, the poor man still can feel the shame of poverty after he makes his first million.

For those of us in the dominant culture, our sensitivities flare up when other excluded groups ask for equal consideration. When people of color are admitted to college programs because of their excluded status, whites call it unfair. When communities can’t place manger scenes in public parks during the holiday season, Christians call it unfair. When homosexuals seek civil unions, heterosexuals call it unfair.

When American Indians say we won’t let our heritage become the symbol for your sports teams, when they say don’t buy “Sioux-per” Dogs and “H-Sioux-O” bottled water; when they say, stop chanting “Sioux Suck,”  we attempt to maintain our privilege even at the cost of fairness. We continue to exert our power-over excluded groups and justify doing so by drawing on the shame and pain of our own exclusions.

No more. As 1 of 19 NCAA colleges left using American Indian imagery, UND needs to let go of the whip, unbuckle the spiked dog collar, and peel off the leather. “Fighting Sioux” supporters need to articulate the ways that they exist inside and outside the dominant culture so they might honor other groups whose shame, however different, is as equally valid.

Only when they acknowledge their status can they prevent it from dominating us all. Until then, “Rough Riders” (tribe-proposed nickname and dominatrix-appropriate) indeed.