The argument that Native American names for sports teams are a sign of respect shouldn’t be dismissed easily. Teams generally choose names that they think sound macho and cool. Dallas calls its football team the Cowboys because cowboys have a cool, macho image. Minnesota’s team calls itself the Vikings for the same reason (it also helps that there are a lot of people in Minnesota of Scandinavian descent). Names like “Lions” and “Bears” and “Jaguars” and “Falcons” connote fierceness- and in football, that’s a POSITIVE thing.
So, it’s undoubtedly TRUE that the sports teams with Indian-themed names (Redskins, Braves, Chiefs, Seminoles, Illini…) chose those names because they thought Indian warriors were fierce, courageous, macho and cool.
BUT…
That doesn’t mean names that were intended to be tributes mightn’t be outdated or insulting anyway.
Speaking as a white guy and a football fan, I have no objection to Indian-themed names in the abstract. To get specific…
I think Illini, Seminoles, and Utes are acceptable names for college football teams- but scantily clad mascots in headdresses are in bad taste.
I think “Indians” is an okay name for a baseball team… but Chief Wahoo has got to go.
I think “Braves” is a fine name for a baseball team, but the Tomahawk Chop should go.
“Redskins” crosses a line. If I owned the team, I would have changed that name a long time ago.
The Potomacs are a native American tribe based in Stafford county and they are the tribe for which the river is named. The Washington Potomacs would be a cool name for the football team and if I was owner that is what I’d name them. To me Redskins is offensive.
Note: A girl I know is part Rosebud Sioux… and she is a total Redskins fan and wears all kinds of Redskins regalia (hats, sweaters, jerseys) to the local pub on game days. She is not offended… and in fact she calls herself a brown girl as she has a kind of natural brown skin tone. The Redskins name does not offend her in any way (we’ve had this discussion) nor her father.
Just as a point of interest, prior to the Braves moving from Milwaukee, Atlanta had both the “Atlanta Crackers” and the “Atlanta Black Crackers” baseball teams.
That was PETA’s tongue in cheek solution. Keep the name but change the mascot to a potato. One of the few times I’ve found myself laughing with PETA insteas of at PETA.
I avoid the controversy by just referring to the team in question as the Washington Littledicks.
What? It’s an affectionate diminutive! Anyway, why should it be perceived as derogatory? Who says that any particular genital dimensions should be considered better or worse than others? You’re making an insult out of this by interpreting it as an insult!
So what would a Sioux City or Sioux Falls team call themselves?
Or any team from the Dakotas? Or Cheyenne? Or Indiana? Wichita? Kansas?
I’m kind of thinking that the names given to many places in the USA are based on the local natives’ names. It’s too late to scrub the land clean with the scourge of political correctness, unless the name is patently offensive, like the rock near Rick Perry’s ranch.
Which brings us full circle to the OP. Is “REDSKIN” basically offensive? I don’t know - I never saw it as such, more like an antiquated term like “colored” or “mulatto” or “chinaman”. Perhaps it slips into minorly offensive like “Jap” or “Frog” or “Kraut”. Like all perceived insults, it depends on context, I guess.
Certainly “BRAVE” is not offensive; nor is “FIGHTING” derogatory, unless applied to the Irish in a certain state.
I’m not surprised- there are many schools on Native American reservations that call their football teams The Redskins. Not all Native Americans are up in arms over the name. I don’t know for sure what percentage likes the name, what percentage hates it, and what percentage really doesn’t care much. But in principle, even if, say, 25% of Native Americans found the name insulting, that would probably be a good enough reason to change the name.
But even though I dislike the name, I recognize (as some people apparently don’t) that the name WAS originally meant as a tribute. NO team deliberately gives itself an insulting name. That’s why there’s never been a team called the Detroit Assholes, the Cleveland Polacks, or San Antonios Wetbacks, or Atlanta Niggers or Miami Crack Dealers or Philadelphia Retards, or San Francisco Fags, or New York Kikes. Teams give THEMSELVES what they think are positive names- they make up insulting names for their OPPONENTS.
I’ll see if I can get you Suzanne Harjo’s email address since I was summarizing what she said in the article.
Union High School here in Tulsa uses Redskins as their team name. Here is an article from the local paper from last year about them not changing their name. It does a good job of reporting on both sides of the issue. An excerpt (the paper’s website was slow to load):
Well, not to cavil or anything, but shouldn’t we expect that anyone being educated in Oklahoma is going to learn about the Plains Indians and their culture? I would have thought that an understanding of such matters is a basic part of the cultural inheritance of any Oklahoman. The notion that students have to encounter Plains Indian culture as a mode of football team branding before they come to encounter it as a culture would bother me, to be honest.
Why would you name your favorite sports team in a derogatory manner? If you want them to win, if you think of them in a way that is laudatory and powerful, then why would anyone think that you mean it with a negative connotation?
Here is an Oklahoma History syllabus from Norman High School. As far as I remember, it is fairly representative.
This is covered in one semester, I’m pretty sure. As you can see, most of the tribes dealt with in the material were the ones moved here from the Southeast. These were allied with the British in the War of 1812, fought against (among others, of course) Andrew Jackson who, when he became president, carried out the Indian Removal Act which was later continued by his successor. Information about Plains Indian culture could conceivably be in American History, but given the breadth of the subject, I’m pretty sure there would be even less time available in that course. I think any information about that would have to wait until college, and then only in rather specialized courses.
To be honest as well, I think that the average white person in Oklahoma would rather not dredge up the history of “Indian Territory”, promised to us, and how it morphed into Oklahoma. At some point (and it has definitely been passed), you need to move on. I think most tribes in the US have. My personal opinion is that Redskin has devolved from its original usage into a slur. There are other American Indians who don’t see it that way. I understand.
I like to think that there is a sort of “moving line” of cultural acceptance, cultural taboos - both in popular culture and the American culture overall. I personally think that this dividing line, this edge of cultural awareness is currently moving Redskin into the past, much like it has done with opposition to gay rights, much as it is currently doing with opposition to same sex marriage, to treating transgendered people as anything other than ordinary people with rights like everyone else. I may be a somewhat naïve optimist but that is perfectly okay with me too.
I’d like to see how they picture that mascot on their baseball hats or jerseys or wherever. (Or maybe I wouldn’t.)
Never mind what the team is called - - what should the city or state call itself? Or the river or the mountain?
For some years now, there has been on-going controversy over the allegedly insensitive names attached to many geographic places, and a lot of renaming happening. To name two particular examples, there have been widespread pogroms of renaming places that have either the word “Squaw” or “Negro” in their names. (And many of those “Negro” names were formerly named with a different N-word!)
There’s a federal agency, U.S. Board on Geographic Names, that seems to have a lot of say on how geographical places may be named, and it’s very political and apparently also very bureaucratic. Individual states have their own geographic names boards, which often do battle with the federal board over place names.
