I know we have this topic going on in a few different threads, but I'll express my thoughts here. I've always thought that when the day comes that they change the name, it will be because stupidity wins the day. I don't think anyone of us has ever heard the word Redskins used as a slur. Because people don’t use it as a slur. Context matters with words. If someone says they hate the Redskins, everyone knows they are talking about a football team. There is no other context to that word in 2020, nor has there been in a long, long time.
But it's not about context or connotation, it's about the small percentage of people who think they should be the ones who decide what is right and wrong in society. And they are usually people not from the same race, origin, religion, gender, etc. They are people who think they are smarter and know more than everyone else, which is why they can decide who is supposed to be offended by what. When the Washington Post took that survey a couple of years ago and 90% of Native Americans weren't offended by the name, that should have ended the discussion. You can't find 90% of people to agree on anything in this country. NOT ONE SINGLE THING. So this is one of the dumbest "This offends them and I know it" items.
On top of that, what will changing the name do for the Native American community? Will it help them with the issues they have in their community? Will it solve any problems they currently have? Will it make right the wrongs that have been done to them throughout history? No. It won't do a thing for them other than put them further out of our memory. Which is what the know-it-all deciders of who is offended want. If they can push out these groups that they are offended for, they can stop feeling guilty because they won't see them any more. Instead of reaching out to this community and listening to their problems and finding ways to solve them, they will just go and change a name they believe they should be offended by. Then they won't have to talk about them at their cocktail parties when the topic of football comes up. Instead they can brag about how they "solved their problems" by changing the name of a football team. What more can the Native American community want? We care. We changed the name.
I expect that we will start to hear more stories about people who are offended by the name. The truth keepers will be out in force trying to find the 10% to bring them to the forefront and make them seem like that it's the 90% who are offended. They will take polls and keep taking them until they get the results they want, then publish them like it's the only opinion. I've always been leery of polls as I know that people take them as much to prove a point as it is to gauge public opinion. If they take a poll and don't get the results they want, they can take another poll, call the people that confirmed their opinion, then call other people knowing that if they get the same number as before to agree with their opinion. They've now doubled their numbers to confirm their side of the argument. So I expect to see new polls take that will cause a massive shift in opinion with Native Americans that wasn't there just a few years ago.
As I said at the start, when the name changes, it will just confirm my belief that stupidity wins out. I'll be disappointed not only because my favorite team has to change their name, but because there is so little thought put into anything these days.
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