I can't speak for everyone, but I live in an area with a high Native American population (and I have Native American blood on both sides of my family). So many of them are Washington Redskins or KC Chiefs fans, but mostly Washington fans (including my uncle). My neighbor up the street is Native American and he has a huge Washington Redskins banner hanging over his garage (next to a Philadelphia Eagles banner- his wife's team of choice).Sloonei wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 11:43 pm Names like the Chiefs/Braves/Blackhawks do not bother me because they’re respectful, tasteful, celebrations of positive aspects of Native American iconography (if not also culture. Idk what the relationship is like between any of these franchises and the local Native American communities). “Redskins” is at best a distasteful informal term of mild mockery. At worst, it’s... much worse than that.
The Cleveland Indians are the real tricky one to me, and they’re apparently moving toward a name change as well. “Indian”, while a pretty ludicrous name for these particular people etymologically speaking, is not necessarily divisive today. But the franchise’s depiction and implementation of the imagery has historically been not-good, and the name as a sort of blunt and vague descriptor isn’t really drawing any positive inspiration from the source.
I'm sure there are Native Americans who don't like the name, but I can't think of ever meeting one in person who ever made that opinion known to me.