The Washington Commanders NFL team is once again at the center of a debate over the U.S.’s history with race and the subjugation of Native Americans.
Just two years after changing its name, the team formerly known as the Washington “Redskins” is the subject of renewed disagreements over where the lines rest between progress and erasure, bigotry and the reclamation of terms that offend, and given the times, the highly politicized culture wars over “wokeness” and social progress.
Some Native Americans are calling for the Washington Commanders to return to its original name and logo.
The team’s name change came in 2020 amid the racial reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd. The team’s name and logo, which featured the image of a Native American Chief, transitioned to the Washington Commanders beginning in 2022.
The changes were a long time coming. Activists both within and outside the Native American community had been calling for the change for ages due to the logo’s appropriation of a tribal warrior’s profile and the “Redskins” name’s long-standing status as a slur for Indigenous Americans. (For this reason, going forward in this piece, we will only be using the term when quoting those advocating for its reclamation.)
But now, a backlash is underway, with some Native Americans and advocacy groups calling the 2022 change erasure of Indigenous people’s heritage and the Native Americans themselves involved in creating the team’s iconic imagery. They insist the change must be overturned.
Approved ~ Primus Pilus
Willie Wanker
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