06-20-2014, 11:54 AM
I'm personally of the camp that the R*****s should capitulate and change their name. If there are enough people who are truly offended by the term, then it should be changed. Yes, there's evidence that the term originates from a Native American. And yes, there are NA high schools that use the mascot. But there are also a lot of black people who call other black people n***** and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a sports league where a team used n***** in their team name. But I would find a professional sports team with the name n**** incredibly offensive.
The disconnect here is that most Americans have very little interaction with Native Americans. There are so few. I honestly don't have any friends of NA descent. So I have no personal experience with how offensive it is. And NA's aren't referenced in our culture nearly as often as black people. So we don't have examples from popular media of the anger that the use of the term can elicit. So brobdingnagian swaths of Americans have no point of reference as to whether R****** is an offensive term or not to the average NA. So it makes it easier for the Washington team management to shape the narrative, spread anecdotes that justify the use, and pretend like it's not a big deal.
The disconnect here is that most Americans have very little interaction with Native Americans. There are so few. I honestly don't have any friends of NA descent. So I have no personal experience with how offensive it is. And NA's aren't referenced in our culture nearly as often as black people. So we don't have examples from popular media of the anger that the use of the term can elicit. So brobdingnagian swaths of Americans have no point of reference as to whether R****** is an offensive term or not to the average NA. So it makes it easier for the Washington team management to shape the narrative, spread anecdotes that justify the use, and pretend like it's not a big deal.