Table of Contents

Home Game The Controversy Myth and Mascot Races of Living Things Starved Rock That Roughneck Indian Game Sons of Modern Illini Folded Leaves The Wild West Chills to the Spine, Tears to the Eyes The Speakers Have It All Wrong In Whose Honor? Signaling The Spoils of Victory Coloring Books What Do I Know about Indians? The Wistful Reservoir Dancing Scandalous and Disparaging The Tribe A Young Child Speaking A Racially Hostile Environment? Homecoming Video Letters

Promotional Information

A topical discussion of the controversial use of American Indian mascots by college-level and professional sports teams.

About the Author

Carol Spindel, author of In the Shadow of the Sacred Grove, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1989), teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Illinois, Urbana.

Reviews

"Spindel's work is a marvelous voyage that prepares the reader for further adventures that are clearly not designed to reveal but to suggest... In explaining white America to Itself, the book is an unqualified success." -- American Indian Quarterly "An unusual and unfailingly interesting examination of a clash of cultures." --Sports Illustrated "Readers of this very important, highly readable book will have a new understanding of the insidiousness of racism and the ease with which mass marketing can create new mythology. Highly recommended." --Library Journal "A thorough treatise on a controversial topic." --Booklist "Spindel writes convincingly about how her research has helped her to understand attitudes toward American Indians... Many fans of professional sports would benefit by reading this book." --Publishers Weekly "Although a great deal has been written about the controversy of using fake Indians to get fans pumped up at football games, it took an entire book to give full vent to the subject. Carol Spindel does this admirably and evenhandedly." --Chicago Tribune "An important resource in the ongoing controversy over Indian mascots across America." --Religious Studies Review "Spindel displays considerable courage in tackling a controversial subject. A very personal account of the twentieth-century phenomenon of American Indians used as sports mascots, Dancing at Halftime also contains some fascinating history of early college football. The whole is strongly and beautifully written." --Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee "With clear and compelling language, Spindel shows us how the naive rituals of a previous era can become the insensitive orthodoxy of today. I can't imagine a more readable-or a more even-handed-exploration of the mascot issue. This should be required reading for anyone committed to building a new sense of community in the United States." --Frederick E. Hoxie, Swanlund Professor, University of Illinois, and editor of The Encyclopedia of North American Indians "Honest, insightful, and a well balanced analysis of this complicated problem. Spindel has discovered the confusing reservoir of tangled emotions that underlie American attitudes towards Indians-and toward themselves. A 'must read'." --Vine Deloria, Jr., Professor of History Emeritus, University of Colorado and a Standing Rock Sioux tribal member "Yesterday's racism we recognize and we are embarrassed by it. Today's racism we often do not recognize until we read something like Carol Spindel's clear and fascinating message in Dancing at Halftime." --Senator Paul Simon "I celebrate Dancing at Halftime, which brings Carol Spindel's wry and penetrating perception to this subject. As she well understands, it is a cipher through which one can read the deeper meanings not only of American history but of contemporary life today." --Susan Griffin, author of A Chorus of Stones

"Spindel's work is a marvelous voyage that prepares the reader for further adventures that are clearly not designed to reveal but to suggest... In explaining white America to Itself, the book is an unqualified success." -- American Indian Quarterly "An unusual and unfailingly interesting examination of a clash of cultures." --Sports Illustrated "Readers of this very important, highly readable book will have a new understanding of the insidiousness of racism and the ease with which mass marketing can create new mythology. Highly recommended." --Library Journal "A thorough treatise on a controversial topic." --Booklist "Spindel writes convincingly about how her research has helped her to understand attitudes toward American Indians... Many fans of professional sports would benefit by reading this book." --Publishers Weekly "Although a great deal has been written about the controversy of using fake Indians to get fans pumped up at football games, it took an entire book to give full vent to the subject. Carol Spindel does this admirably and evenhandedly." --Chicago Tribune "An important resource in the ongoing controversy over Indian mascots across America." --Religious Studies Review "Spindel displays considerable courage in tackling a controversial subject. A very personal account of the twentieth-century phenomenon of American Indians used as sports mascots, Dancing at Halftime also contains some fascinating history of early college football. The whole is strongly and beautifully written." --Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee "With clear and compelling language, Spindel shows us how the naive rituals of a previous era can become the insensitive orthodoxy of today. I can't imagine a more readable-or a more even-handed-exploration of the mascot issue. This should be required reading for anyone committed to building a new sense of community in the United States." --Frederick E. Hoxie, Swanlund Professor, University of Illinois, and editor of The Encyclopedia of North American Indians "Honest, insightful, and a well balanced analysis of this complicated problem. Spindel has discovered the confusing reservoir of tangled emotions that underlie American attitudes towards Indians-and toward themselves. A 'must read'." --Vine Deloria, Jr., Professor of History Emeritus, University of Colorado and a Standing Rock Sioux tribal member "Yesterday's racism we recognize and we are embarrassed by it. Today's racism we often do not recognize until we read something like Carol Spindel's clear and fascinating message in Dancing at Halftime." --Senator Paul Simon "I celebrate Dancing at Halftime, which brings Carol Spindel's wry and penetrating perception to this subject. As she well understands, it is a cipher through which one can read the deeper meanings not only of American history but of contemporary life today." --Susan Griffin, author of A Chorus of Stones

The uproar over the use of Native American images as sports team mascots mystifies many in America's majority culture. How can Chief Illiniwek, the regal dancing warrior at the University of Illinois's football games, be perceived as insulting when the intent, his supporters claim, is to honor this country's Native American past? In this powerful, perceptive narrative, non-Native Spindel (creative writing, Univ. of Illinois) explores the source of such imagery and why the use of Natives as symbols so upsets Native Americans today. The reverence for the Indian of America's past, she asserts, says a lot about white America and its reluctance to deal with contemporary Native Americans. For their part, many Indians feel strongly that these glorified interpretations of their past negate their right to define themselves and have a severe impact on the self-images of their children. "Copycats," children somehow understand, "appropriate the power of the people they mimic." Readers of this very important, highly readable book will have a new understanding of the insidiousness of racism and the ease with which mass marketing can create new mythology. Highly recommended.DMary B. Davis, Huntington Free Lib., Bronx, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.