Some Native Nicknames and Logos must go

An NFL referee that retired after last season has just revealed that he asked not to officiate at Washington Redskins games in 2006 because he understood that the team's nickname was offensive to many Native Americans. The NFL honored his request. The former ref, Mike Carey, was interviewed by Keith Olbermann on ESPN.

[caption id="attachment_7664" align="alignright" width="294"] Some nicknames and images are more offensive than others.[/caption]

Earlier this year, the NFL franchise based in Washington had six trademarks cancelled because, in the words of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, they were "disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered." (I think the best treatment of this issue in the media was in the New Yorker Magazine.) Despite losing their trademarks, however, the team will still be allowed to use their disrespectful nickname while the ruling is appealed, a process that will probably last a number of years.

In 2012, residents of North Dakota voted to scrap their University's long-held nickname and the mascot that went with it. The team formerly known as "the Fighting Sioux," currently has no nickname and no mascot, according Wikipedia. What happened in North Dakota prompted ESPN columnist Paul Lukas to write "Time to rethink Native American imagery."

I've said many times that Indians don't agree on everything. They are not just Indians, of course, they are individuals. What may be offensive to one Indian isn't always offensive to another. But, in a country with millions of Native Americans, even if only a significant minority of them are offended by a particular nickname, mascot, or image, it still adds up to too many people being hurt.

While few people want a world with language police coercing us into political correctness, and most people recognize the importance of "not taking themselves too seriously," those facts still leave us with plenty of room to condemn many - but not all - nicknames and images associated with Natives.

The argument some make that sports team nicknames were meant to "honor" Natives usually doesn't pass the smell test. But there are tribes, such as the Seminoles, who have made agreements with athletic departments, essentially approving that their names and other associations can be used by the teams. There may be other exceptions where something related to Native culture or history is used with enough respect to grace athletes uniforms. Certainly there are some nicknames and images that are more offensive than others.

Probably the best general article about this topic that I've read is "A Century of Racist Sports Team Names" by Matt Connolly and Ian Gordon (originally published in Mother Jones).

What do you think?