Sports Teams With Native American Names

A writer writes!

The 2013 National Football League season featured a controversy regarding the Washington Redskins maintaining the current name of the team.  The "Redskins" moniker has been deemed offensive to Native Americans.  The owner of the Washington team has not agreed to changing the name to something else.  I believe his reason was because the name "Redskins" has some historical significance to the Washington football franchise.

Let's look at the facts.  The Native American culture that once existed in North America and what is now the United States of America, has pretty much been wiped out.  This extermination of the Native American culture was supposedly done in the name of progress for "civilized" people.  I assume that is the same civilized culture where today students and non students in this country go to schools and other public venues to kill people at random?  What benefit or homage does a team give to Native Americans by using a nickname that Native Americans themselves are against?   Are professional or non professional teams with Native American names paying some type of stipend to various Native American descendants for using those names?  I don't think so.  Are these teams contributing to a fund that builds museums and supports study of the Native American culture that once existed in North America?   If so, someone please send me that information.

What harm would come if all the sports teams in this country took off any references to Native Americans?  This country already doesn't do much to recognize that the Native American culture once existed.  So, why not go the extra mile and remove the reminders that the remnants of the Native American culture find offensive or demeaning?

There are plenty of other more up to date names available.  The Atlanta Snow Plows could be the new name for the Atlanta Braves baseball team.  The Cleveland Cadavers is a name that could replace that of the Cleveland Indians baseball team.  Who knows how many team names are out there from grade school to college level that have a sports team name, supposedly related to Native Americans.  "Steroid Cheaters",  "Concussion Makers", "Millionaires", "Idols" are all available names that could apply to various teams in different sports at the professional level.

For 2014, let's make that move.  Delete references to Native Americans as nicknames for sports teams.  Let's start picking nicknames that are up to date with the American culture that realistically exists in the year 2014.