Commanders and Guardians don't need to revert to racist names to be great again
Help me out, Wisconsin. Please, no one tell President Donald Trump that Milwaukee used to have an MLB team called the Braves or that Marquette University used to be known as the Warriors. I don't want to jump into the way-back machine.
You might have heard Trump is urging the Washington Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians to revert to their former team names, which included derogatory terms based on racist caricatures.
He even suggested that if the Commanders did not change their name back, he would obstruct the NFL team's efforts to build a new $3.7 billion football stadium in Washington, DC.
This stance is part of Trump's agenda to "Make America Great Again," even if it offends Native Americans who have criticized the previous names and images for decades. This can be seen as his latest attempt at what he believes is patriotism. I'm afraid he wants to take America so far back to a time when there was separate water fountains for Black and White people.
Trump claims Native Americans 'want this to happen'
In a July 20 post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump claimed that Native Americans want the names reverted.
"There is a big clamoring for this," wrote Trump. "Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago."
I'm uncertain how many Native Americans Trump consulted to conclude that "massive numbers" want the name changed back. Even if that were true – which I doubt – it raises the question of why they would like the name to be reverted in the first place.
Take our poll: Trump wants Washington Commanders to revert to old name. Should they? | Opinion Forum
Following George Floyd's killing by a Minneapolis police officer, there was a renewed effort to remove Confederate statues seen as symbols of slavery and racism and to eliminate racist sports team names. By the end of 2020, nearly 100 Confederate monuments had been taken down, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Efforts begun in the Biden administration to rename offensive and derogatory place names – including many in Wisconsin – were halted by Trump-appointed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
The Washington football team rebranded as the Commanders in 2022 following the controversy surrounding their original name. Similarly, the Cleveland baseball team changed their name to the Guardians in 2021 after going by their original name since 1915.
Neither Washington nor Cleveland appears willing to cave to pressure to revert to names they used in the past simply to appease Trump, and they should firmly stand by this decision.
Furthermore, if Trump interferes with the Commanders' efforts to secure a new stadium, the NFL should consider legal action. This could prevent Trump from targeting other teams in similar ways. What would stop him from pushing teams to return to leather helmets or reinstating outdated rules intended to protect players?
Milwaukee Brewers, Marquette Golden Eagles changed names
Imagine what will happen if Trump discovers Milwaukee's past? Before moving to Atlanta in 1966, the MLB franchise used a logo with a laughing Native American with a mohawk and feather.
What about my alma mater, Marquette University? Will he pressure the school to change from the Golden Eagles back to 'the Warriors,' which in 1961-71 featured Willie Wampum, a Native American with a giant cartoonish head and Indigenous clothing?
I must admit that I had a hard time adjusting to the name changes for Washington and Cleveland. The team change for the nation's capital was especially difficult for me because, as a football historian, I remember the great battles between the Washington (derogatory name) and the Green Bay Packers.
Do you remember the 1983 football game between Washington and Green Bay at Lambeau Field, which became the second-highest scoring game in Monday Night Football history? Washington's quarterback, Joe Theismann, and the Packers' quarterback, Lynn Dickey, combined to throw for nearly 800 yards. The Packers won the game 48-47 with a field goal by Jan Stenerud.
Opinion: Trump bans AP and words he doesn't like. 'Free speech' was never about the First Amendment.
This game quickly made the Washington team my second favorite. Although its logo featured an image of Blackfeet Chief Two Guns White Calf, I didn't find anything wrong with the depiction of the Native American with a red face.
For years, I hadn't fully understood the significance and racial implications of the derogatory name and imagery associated. That changed after a conversation with one of my former editors, Ricardo Pimentel.
He posed a thought-provoking question: "James, what if the Washington team was called the Washington N-words?" While no one would ever take it that far, his words made me rethink and recognize the impact of such imagery.
This is something that Trump should consider before interfering with professional sports. Instead, he might want to focus on delivering on promises he made to the American people, you know about releasing the Jeffrey Epstein case files and lowering egg prices.
James E. Causey is an Ideas Lab reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where this column originally appeared. Reach him at jcausey@jrn.com or follow him on X: @jecausey
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Trump administration requested voter data. Secretary Bellows says, ‘Go jump in the Gulf of Maine'
Shenna Bellows waits outside the Maine House of Representatives chamber before legislators elected her to serve another term as Secretary of State. (Photo by Jim Neuger/Maine Morning Star) The U.S. Department of Justice asked Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to provide access to the state's voter registration list and other sweeping election data. Bellows told Maine Morning Star she will respond in the next few days by telling the DOJ that it does not have the right to such information. 'The federal government has overstepped its bounds,' Bellows said. 'We will be denying their request for the citizen voter information of every Mainer.' Bellows said, according to the National Association of Secretaries of State, the DOJ is asking for voter information from all 50 states. Maine Morning Star's partner outlets have been following these probes in at least nine other states so far. 'Why on Earth does the Department of Justice need the voter information from all 50 states?' Bellows said. 'If Congress thought it was appropriate that there be a national voter file, Congress could have authorized the Department of Justice to do that, but they have not.' The latest request in Maine follows a less expansive inquiry earlier this month. In a July 10 email, Scott Laragy, principal deputy director in the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, requested a phone call with Bellows to discuss a 'potential information-sharing agreement' to provide the DOJ with information on registered voters in Maine who are ineligible to vote or 'may otherwise have engaged in unlawful conduct relevant to the election process.' The Department of the Secretary of State sent a response acknowledging receipt of the email that same day. Then, on July 24, the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ sent a vastly more detailed request for specific data, including the statewide voter registration list, names of officials who handle the list's maintenance and the number of ineligible voters the state identified due to noncitizenship, among other information about the state's election processes. 'We don't know why they're doing this, whether it is to change the subject away from topics like the Epstein files, or whether it is to undermine voter confidence in our strong election systems,' said Bellows, a Democrat who is running for governor in 2026. But it doesn't matter why, she said, it violates the U.S. Constitution, which puts states in charge of elections. The DOJ declined to answer Maine Morning Star's requests for comment on the emails regarding why the administration is seeking the information and how it intends to use it. DOJLetter During Trump's first term, Bellows' predecessor Matt Dunlap denied Trump's voter fraud commission access to the state voter file, which Bellows said was the correct move. Dunlap served on the panel and after it was disbanded said it was set up to validate Trump's voter fraud claims. He did not respond to requests for comment for this story. 'The secretary of state at the time of the state of Mississippi, Delbert Hosemann [a Republican], told the DOJ to go jump in the Gulf of Mexico,' Bellows added. 'My answer to the DOJ is, 'Go jump in the Gulf of Maine.'' While Bellows intends to tell the DOJ they have no right to the information, it is due within 14 days of receipt, according to the letter which came from the division's Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Gates and Acting Chief of the Voting Section Maureen Riordan. The requests are for data specifically from November 2022 through the receipt of the letter. One of the demands is the number of registered voters identified as ineligible to vote in Maine for that time period specifically because of the following reasons: 'non-citizen,' 'adjudicated incompetent,' and 'felony conviction.' Maine is one of two states that have no restrictions on eligibility to vote based on criminal convictions. For each of these categories, the DOJ also requested the individual's registration information on the statewide voter registration list, including their vote history. The requests in other states have ranged in scope. Other states received 'information-sharing agreement' inquiries, including nearby Rhode Island. Meanwhile, at least nine states have received requests from the DOJ for more detailed voter information like the latest in Maine, such as turning over full voter registration lists and each state's process for flagging noncitizen applicants. These nine states include Alaska, Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Colorado — the latter being the most sweeping publicly known request. The DOJ is demanding Colorado turn over all records related to the 2024 election, a massive trove of documents that could include ballots and even voting equipment. These requests have raised fears about how the Trump administration plans to use the information. Jen Lancaster, communications director for Democracy Maine, a collaboration between nonpartisan organizations working to make government more equitable by improving elections, protecting and engaging voters, described the probes as 'a nefarious data grab' that is likely intended to target groups that have already been subject to other data probes by the Trump administration, such as immigrants. 'We hope that our election officials, if it came down to being pushed to share that sensitive data, we would hope that they resist that,' Lancaster said. The latest request of Maine cites state data provided for the election administration and voting survey conducted by the Election Assistance Commission, an independent agency of the U.S. government created by Congress in 2002 to aid the states in conducting safe and secure elections. For example, the letter noted that Maine's survey response showed that there were nearly as many registered voters listed as active as the citizen voting age population in Maine in 2024, with a registration rate of 92.4%. The letter went on to request further details about the state's response, such as information about the actions Maine is taking to ensure that ineligible voters are being removed and a list of all duplicate registrants the state has removed. Secretary of State finds dual voting accusations from Maine GOP to be false 'Again, the Trump administration and the DOJ are blurring the lines and overstepping their bounds,' Bellows said in response to these asks. '… We are proud of our high voter registration rates. I work hard on school campuses, in community outreach events, to promote voter registration.' Bellows added, 'The nature of these questions suggest that the DOJ is more interested in keeping people that they don't like from voting than promoting voter registration and participation.' The DOJ requests for Maine voter data come after the state GOP accused multiple Maine citizens of voting twice in the same election, claims that Bellows determined to be false earlier this month. The state party, along with the help of the Republican National Committee, found more than 600 voters who registered to vote twice and more than 50 who voted twice in the same election, using a state voter file provided by the Secretary of State, according to details shared in a June 26 Facebook post. According to Bellows' office, of the 51 names in question, 11 were different people with the same name and another 19 were erroneously recorded by their local municipality as having voted twice but in fact had not. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
