Justice For All

What if we had a new NBA basketball team called “The Negroes”? How long would that last? Or if we had a NHL hockey team named “The Crackers”?  We all know there would be rallies, protest and many different things to promote change. But why haven’t we seen this much noise being made for Native Americans? For decades Native Americans have had to sit back watch movies, professional sports teams and even schools mimic their ways of life or what we assume they’re like. But like they say better late than never, more Native Americans are taking a stand against the injustice they face.

Since then some schools have changed their school’s mascot if they felt they were offensive to Native Americans. But some teams have kept them because they were specific names of tribes and felt like they honored Native Americans. In my opinion they should take them away all together. The images we see are really stereotypical images that come to mind when we think of “Indians” (that we still say) or Native Americans. There is no honor in that. I feel like most Americans are in denial about the level of racism that still exists because it is not as obvious as it used to be.

If having specific groups of races as a mascot isn’t offensive how come we don’t see it as much? The only other race that has a mascot is the Irish (NBA Boston Celtics). Other than that you see the typical animals or objects as mascots. The reason it is not being done as much is because everyone knows how racist it is. I’m glad the Natives are finally taking a stand. It’s a shame it had to take this long. The real question we should be asking is why did we not take the Native Americans seriously in the first place?

Why did it take this long for us to finally hear the Native Americans? We are supposed to be the land of the free but yet we isolate them from the rest of us in reservation camps. We make Acts saying we’re sorry but never make an attempt to do something about it. For the longest we have pushed the Native Americans to the side as if they don’t exist. We rarely even see them represented in the media (TV shows, Movies, etc.) as everyday people. 

Bottom line we need to respect every race and color no matter where they are from or what they might look like. We need to snap out of this euphoria of everything is alright and that racism is finally over. The Native Americans are finally having their moment that is long overdue. The injustice for them has been going on longer than any other American race issue. There is even a song to help us remember exactly when it began “In 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue”. So we should all do our part to help bring them their peace and respect everyone deserves.