Mascot Controversy

Change the Mascot

If you don’t like to be called a racial slur, then what makes you think that the Native Americans do? From national sports teams to middle school mascots, Native Americans have been used as a symbol to represent that team or school. With the Native American mascot comes the racial term, redskins. The term, redskins, comes from a universally accepted color for Native Americans. It is so, because the color label of Native Americans was deemed, red. Redskins, has now been defined as offensive and insulting, is not used in public with the exception of sports teams and school mascots. It probably takes a lot of money to change the name of a sports team so I can see why it would be an issue of changing it. I think that sports teams and school mascots should be banned from having something so offensive representing their school or team.

            Oneida Nation Representative Ray Halbritter said, “We do not deserve to be called redskins.” I absolutely agree with what he is saying. Why should the Native Americans be called a racial slur? What have the Native Americans done to deserve that? The Native Americans has not done anything to deserve being called that and I think it should be banning from being a mascot in a school or sports team. Calling Native Americans, redskins, is equivalent to calling any other race their racial slur. It is offensive and anybody who uses it is frowned upon, but why is it not the same with the Native Americans? Why is it that Americans can use the term, redskins, so freely and not be criticized? I think because it is used in a sports team name people think it is ok, but it is still a racial slur and it is unacceptable for those teams that use it and display it the way that they do. Not only does these teams use racial slurs to represent their teams but they also use a mascot that reflects the name as well. For example some sports teams with Indian or Redskins in their name also has a red-skinned Indian mascot.

            Daniel Snyder said, “We’ll never change the name.” Daniel Snyder is the owner of the NFL team, Washington Redskins. Daniel is referring to the name of his team and the fact the he is not going to change it anytime soon. I can see why he would not want to change the name of his team. That team has been known as the Washington Redskins for a while and it would cost him a lot of money to change the name. With that being said I think he should still change his team name simply because it is offensive to the Native American race. No one want to be called a racial slur, it makes a person insecure about his or her race. For a racial slur to be representing a sports team is very offensive and it is critical for to be banned from using it.