Warrior Motif Analysis

The main topic of the first article deals with the intersectionality between sports, class, racism, education, money and housing in St. Louis. This author talks about the success of the St. Louis Rams in the 1990’s and the low and middle class children of St. Louis are victims of segregation subsidies and racism among the housing market and education.

The main topic of the second article looks at how the Warrior Motif functions in depictions of Native American athletes. The two main depictions that are analyzed includes the depiction of Native American high school basketball players in a 1991 article and Phil Jackson’s usage of the Warrior motif in his book 1995 Sacred Hoops and in a 1999 ESPN television profile.

In the first article, the

As I was reading it, it reminded me a lot about the conversations I have and still have with my father about the value of UH athletics and the cost that’s unnecessarily given to the students at the University due to tuition increases and the over-reliance on University adjuncts to teach classes. It’s a point that we talk about often, especially after the Stevie Wonder Debacle at UH. Most recently, when UH approved the idea of giving student athletes pensions despite the UH athletic department running in the red. My father and I couldn’t believe it. With the athletic department running in the red, the question becomes, where’s the money going to come from? The answer to this is the student body, particularly with tuition increases and fee increases. I also liked this article because it reminded me of a similar argument made by HBO’s John Oliver of Last Week Tonight, wherein he argues that stadiums built for sports teams are a waste of taxpayer money. Due to my bias and familiarity with the topic, I preferred The Silence of the Rams article because of the mix of statistical information, historical context and simpler argument. That’s not to say that the Warriors and Thieves article wasn’t bad either. The fact that the author could take two different depictions and interpretations of Native American Warrior and make the case for how both positive and negative depictions of the Native American Warrior work to enforce the concept of whiteness in American Society, allowing white Americans to “legitimize” their usage of the Native American warrior motif, while simultaneously reframing and perpetuating the existence of the Native American Warrior as a static image stuck in the past. It’s a pretty neat way to add a ton of complexity to an argument that’s been used and argued many