Pros And Cons Of Native American Nicknames

Sports teams, like the Redskins, have names pertaining to Native Americans that is highly offensive to some people. Names like these have sparked high controversy on whether they should be able to identify the team as this or not. Using Native American nicknames as a name of a sport team should not be allowed for several reasons.
Americans today tend to believe that everyone should be equal and nobody should be discriminated against or identified by their race. The current ideas of Americans is what is igniting such debates about Native American names. In the Scholastic Magazine, an article written by Alessandra Potenza titled “Insult or Honor?” was published in August of 2014 says, “‘this racial designation based on skin color is disparaging

to Native Americans.’” People using Native American sports teams names is naming a team after the skin color of a race. Doing this is insulting towards Native Americans, who are not only being reminded of their oppressive past, but also being isolated as a group of people. The viewer sees them solely as a skin color, which is acting in a racist way.

This would be similar to naming a school after an African tribe and calling their sports teams the Blackskins. As you can tell, hearing this sounds outrageous and completely inappropriate. In the same, way, using teams with Native American names is just as insensitive. Many Americans fail to realize why these terms are so offensive. For one, in an article titled “The History of ‘Redskin’” written by Lakshmi Gandhi and published in September 2013 by NPR, it says that “decades later, the word ‘redskin’ began to take on a negative, increasingly violent connotation.” Understanding the connotation with the word is key in knowing exactly why people are offended. Using words to describe a situation, like uneasy, have a connotation to make a person uncomfortable. In the same way, the word Redskin communicates with the people the negative and violent past of these people, which gives it a negative connotation. The name of a team, no matter the attachment the people have to the legacy, should not have such a connotation, and therefore should not be used. Even so, the past president of the United States, Barack Obama, mentions in the New York Times article “Obama Points to ‘Legitimate Concerns’ Over Redskins’ Name” written by Ken Belson in 2013, “‘I don’t know whether our attachment to a particular name

should override the real legitimate concerns that people have about these things.’” Obama stating this makes it clear to all Americans that no matter how much someone simply likes the name and becomes close-minded enough to disregard the personal feelings of others, it is not enough to overpower the real concerns people face due to the racist names.
Knowing the connotation of these racist names and reasons underlying the people who support removal of names like this should be enough for a good American to realize the problem associated with these names. Anyone who encounters a name like these should realize the connotation associated with the words they are using. To be so ignorant is inhumane and is not acceptable in society. In order to establish peace and make right to those who have been wronged, we should simply change the offensive school/sport names and move on with our lives to focus on the bigger and more important things in society.