UMSM steering committee member plaintiff in mascots lawsuit

Marcus Briggs-Cloud and Steering Committee Co-Chair Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger confer about Student Forum.
GBHEM photo by Vicki Brown.

 

By Vicki Brown*

When Marcus Briggs-Cloud first moved to Oklahoma, he was stunned to find that no one spoke his native language.

Briggs-Cloud, a member of the Miccosukee Tribe of the Muskoke Nation, is a descendent of a woman who escaped the forced removal of Indians from Florida and ran home to hide out in the swamps.

“My great-great-great-great grandmother was 14 years old when she ran all the way back to Florida,” Briggs-Cloud said.

Briggs-Cloud, who is an affiliate member of Norman First United Methodist Church, attended Student Forum 2007 and was invited to serve on the steering committee which directed this year’s national leadership development event.

“A social justice speaker didn’t show up, and I ended up talking about my life,” Briggs-Cloud said. “I’m Catholic, but mostly I practice my own native spiritual beliefs, and The United Methodist Church allows for worship with native traditions.”

Briggs-Cloud, 24, who will attend Harvard Divinity School in the fall, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit which contends the Redskins trademark is disparaging to Native Americans and that the registration should be cancelled under the Lanham Act, a law that prohibits trademarks that bring a group into contempt or disrepute.

“When Suzan Shown Harjo called and asked me if I would be a plaintiff, I really had to think and pray about it,” Briggs-Cloud said. But he said the term is so offensive to Native Americans that he agreed.

“This is an issue we tend to overlook. A lot of our people say we have more important things to work on,” Briggs-Cloud said. “But the negative stereotypes have a psychological effect on children.”

Briggs-Cloud also leads a group in language preservation.

“We only have 40 speakers of Muskoke. There are 155 unique native languages that are still spoken and 132 of them are in danger,” Briggs-Cloud said.

One concern about the loss of language is that it will be followed by the loss of the ceremonies of indigenous people.

“We believe that when our last ceremonial ground goes down, our people will perish,” Briggs-Cloud said.

*Brown is associate editor and writer, Office of Interpretation, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

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