Latest news with #Whatever's'
The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Native Americans slam Trump's push to return to Commanders' old name
"No Native American child should have to sit through a pep rally or in a stadium where their culture is being mocked," said Jacqueline De Leon, senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund. Trump threatened over the weekend to block a deal to build a stadium in Washington, D.C., if the Washington Commanders team refuses to revert to the name it had from 1937 when the team moved from Boston until 2022. "The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team," Trump posted on his Truth Social site. "I may put a restriction on them that if they don't change the name back to the original 'Washington Redskins,' and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, 'Washington Commanders.'" In a post the same day, Trump said Native Americans would welcome the change. "Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen," he wrote in a post that also encouraged the Cleveland Guardians to revert to a former name. "Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!" But that's not what USA TODAY found when reaching out to Native American activists. Native Americans are not mascots, said Savannah Romero, a member of the enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone Nation, who urged city officials not to yield to the name change. "We are language keepers, land protectors, survivors of attempted genocide, and a part of sovereign nations," Romero, co-founder and deputy director of the BLIS (Black Liberation-Indigenous Sovereignty) Collective Collective, said in a statement. "To equate Native people with cartoonish mascots alongside animals is a gross and ongoing tactic of dehumanization." 'Disrespectful to the pain and suffering' Trump's move comes in the wake of efforts across the country to ban the use of Native American mascots and logos in schools, including in New York. The Native American Rights Fund supported efforts in New York to ban the use of such mascots. It recently released a video pushing back against the use of Native American mascots. In a June 17 announcement, the Department of Education called the ban "an unlawful attempt to ban mascots and logos that celebrate Native American history.'' De Leon said that challenge is part of the larger narrative by the Trump administration to muddy the waters and undermine civil rights protections. It's not racist to push back against racism, she said. "Native Americans are being used as tools for a distraction," De Leon said. "That's very disrespectful to the pain and suffering imposed on Native people by inaccurately depicting our culture." More: Why some Native American citizens worry about getting caught in ICE's net Beth Wright, a member of Pueblo of Laguna, said the United States has long tried to erase Native identity and culture, including through federal Indian boarding schools, banning Native religious and cultural practices and seizing control over Native lands. "Native people are still working to revitalize what the United States tried to erase,'' said Wright, a staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. "Native mascots work directly against these efforts by perpetuating false historical narratives about Native people and false depictions of who Native people are today.'' 'It's a slur' In 2013, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 groups, approved a resolution calling for owners of the Washington team to change its name. The resolution called for the elimination of names and mascots "that promote negative stereotypes and connotations or that trivialize Native American cultures.'' De Leon, who had lived in the Washington, D.C., area for several years, said it hurt when she saw people wearing shirts with the old name. "I don't even like to say the word because it's a slur," she said.
Qatar Tribune
a day ago
- Politics
- Qatar Tribune
Trump urges Commanders and Guardians teams to reverse name change
DPA Washington US President Donald Trump on Sunday called for Washington's football and Cleveland's baseball teams to revert to their former names, which had long been criticized as racist. 'The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past,' he wrote. '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. We are a Country of passion and common sense.' Trump went on to say he may 'put a restriction' on the Washington team if they did not revert. 'I won't make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington. The Team would be much more valuable, and the Deal would be more exciting for everyone,' Trump wrote. The Redskins name was retired in 2020, in what was seen a major win for Native American activists who had long seen the team's name as an offensive slur against the indigenous people of the US. The team played as the Washington Football team for two seasons and rebranded as the Washington Commanders in 2022. Cleveland dropped the name Indians in 2020, before announcing the switch to Guardians in 2021. Many sports teams reconsidered their names amid a protest movement against racism, sparked by the 2020 death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody.
Buzz Feed
3 days ago
- Politics
- Buzz Feed
Trump Demands Return Of Offensive Sports Team Names
Donald Trump has continuously tried to assert his power as president in the sports world, and most recently, he's taken to Truth Social to demand that two professional sports team bring back their controversial team names, "immediately." In a recent Truth Social post, Trump wrote: "The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past." "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. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!" Here's the full post: For context, the NFL team Washington Commanders (formerly known as the Washington Redskins) officially retired their 87-year-old team name on July 13, 2020, due to public pushback about the term "redskins" being offensive to the Indigenous community, who viewed it both as a "slur" and a "stereotype." Suzan Harjo, an advocate who fought for the name change and a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, spoke to NPR about why it was so important: "If it's permissible to say such things to us, such names, then it is permissible to do anything to us," she said. "I had lots of things in my personal life using that word. When I was a girl, you barely could make it through your young life without getting attacked by a bunch of white people, whether they were boys or girls or men or women. And they would always go to that word." Similarly, the major league baseball team, the Cleveland Guardians (formerly known as the Cleveland Indians), officially changed its team name after the 2021 season. The team's owner, Paul Dolan, credited the "social unrest" in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, with making him want to change his organization's name. "We do feel like we're doing the right thing and that's what's driving this,'' Dolan said, according to ESPN. "I know some people disagree, but if anything, I've gotten more and more comfortable that we're headed in the right direction." Here's what people had to say about Trump's most recent rant: One person called it a "desperate attempt to distract," seemingly from all of the recent news surrounding Trump and the Epstein files. "hes gonna convince his base that the natives want the old names back instead of telling u THEY are the reason the names were changed. telling natives they are 'loosing their heritage' over these names is laughable nobody talks about that shit anymore. nobody fucking cares but him." "The President of the United States going on about the name of a Football Team this Sunday morning is just another example of how batshit crazy this shitshow is." What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
NBC Sports
3 days ago
- Politics
- NBC Sports
President Trump wants Commanders to "IMMEDIATELY" return to former name
If Commanders owner Josh Harris has been tiptoeing toward a possible return to their abandoned name, they have officially gotten a two-handed shove. President Donald Trump, who currently has no reason whatsoever to change the subject on any matter that possibly has had his base up in arms for over a week, posted the following message today on his social-media platform: 'The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this. . . . . 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. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!' He also called for the Cleveland Guardians to return to Indians. Which, frankly, is an easier argument to make, because Indians isn't a dictionary-defined slur. The late Charles Krauthammer, a conservative columnist, explained the situation perfectly in 2013. Times change. Words change. Things that used to be fine no longer are. Now, there's a movement to turn back the clock. In more ways than one. It remains to be seen whether the Commanders will comply. Maybe an executive order is coming. Maybe there will be other ways to apply pressure to the team and/or the league. Maybe, as we've predicted in the past, an eventual deal to build a new D.C. stadium will be tied to changing the name back to what it used to be.
