Professional sports leagues should not allow cultural appropriation or racial slurs in team names.
Teams including the Kansas City Chiefs, the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves need to realize the organizations are not honoring historically underprivileged groups by having team names or mascots depicting legitimate ethnic identities. The use of ethnic groups to represent many U.S. sports organizations is flat out offensive and racist.
Public pressure from social justice movements, including Black Lives Matter, led to corporate pressures and the July 13 rebranding of the NFL’s Washington Football Team, which previously used a Native American racial slur, according to a July 1 ESPN article.
The team’s rebranding was decades overdue.
The derogatory term is believed to originate from nineteenth-century Native American bounty hunts. This is evident from The Daily Republican newspaper archives based in Winona, Minnesota, which contained a Sept. 24, 1863 ad that rewarded money for killing Native Americans.
Investment firms and shareholders worth a combined $620 billion asked Nike, FedEx and PepsiCo to terminate sponsorships with the Washington Football Team if the organization did not change its name, according to a July 1 Sports Illustrated article.
Proving just how effective corporate pressures can be, the Washington Football Team could not risk losing these significant sponsors.
The social outcry, activism and public pressure was enough for Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder to cave and change the team’s name.
Snyder and other Washington Football Team officials initially said the name was a placeholder until the organization could find another replacement, but the name may become permanent, according to a Sept. 13 NBC sports article.
Before the threat of corporate backout, Snyder made his intentions clear just seven years prior.
“We’ll never change the name. It’s that simple. NEVER – you can use caps,” he said in a May 10, 2013, USA Today interview.
Many marginalized individuals are tired of having to explain why culturally incorrect cartoons as “mascots” mocking their identities are wrong and why they deserve basic human rights and decency.
Marginalized people, including Native Americans, should not be team mascots, especially considering the U.S.’ history with Native American genocide, race-based violence and segregation.
Teams that utilize racial slurs and inappropriate caricatures can encourage many fans to believe these harmful stereotypes are accurate or justified.
But in reality, these false interpretations are recklessly representing cultures that are not in anyone’s right to represent except those within the cultures themselves.
The blatant misrepresentation of cultural identity and use of appropriation has no place in widespread media or American entertainment.
It does not matter if it’s a non-Native American person wearing a headdress at a football game or a Victoria Secret model wearing eagle feathers on a runway in underwear.
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the largest representative Native American advocacy organization, launched a campaign to rebrand Native American-inspired stereotypes in pop culture on its website.
Professional teams that disrespectfully depict Native Americans have become multi-million dollar franchises, yet none have repaid or apologized to the individuals they are dehumanizing.
Not only have Native Americans been dehumanized, but they have endured centuries of horror because of little federal and state support and minimal access to resources.
According to data from the 2018 U.S. Census, Native Americans have the highest poverty rate among all minority groups in the country at about 25%.
Sports fans can honor Native Americans by instead developing empathy and building understanding with them, rather than pushing for incorrect cultural representations.
People who don’t think that these media representations are an issue means they do not personally experience this kind of cultural mockery, and that is a privilege in the U.S.
Sports teams have a huge impact on both fans and many of the identities it affects. These multi-million dollar organizations have the power to be a catalyst for larger changes in media representation of Native Americans.
