Why Is It Taking So Long?

"But many Native Americans contend it's incredulous that a major sports team in the nation's capital fails to see the word's offensiveness..." writes Micheal Martinez of CNN. This is yet another extention of the very long and ongoing Washington Redskins controversy. The same thing that the Native Americans are wondering is the same thing I am taking a stance on. Why are so many people not understanding the negative impact and the negative connotation of this word Redskins? If Native Americans take offense to this word, among other racial terms, that should be enough for us as decent human beings to stop referring to them as such. We definitely should not be plastering those derogatory nicknames that represent our American sports teams. Such as: Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, Chicago Blackhawks and more. We display these nicknames on a daily basis all over America and we are sending the wrong message. The message that we are sending is that these names are alright, that these names are cool to say and they are not. They are absolutely not alright to say.

The Native Americans find "Redskins" the most offensive word to be referred to as. So what is the problem with changing the team's name? I'm sure I am not the only one who feels this way. The owner for the Washington franchise, Daniel Snyder, refuses to chnage his team's name out of "tradition". Can you believe it? Tradition? What tradition are they talking about? The tradition of reminding the American people, as well as the Native Americans who live in America, how we stole this land away from them so many years ago. How we ran them out of their homes to make way for the "New" america. How we had no regard for their lives or livelyhood in general. Or the tradition of insulting those same Native Americans for the last 70 years by using this racial name to describe a pro fottball team in Washington D.C..

 Nobody wants to be ridiculed or made fun of or discriminated in this age of understanding, if you will, in America. Where African Americans are being shown more respect with their derogatory and racist terms. Racism is not escaped African Americans, and some would agrue that it never will, but the sensitivity of the N word has come to light in many situations in America recently and has been dealt with in a pretty gemtle manner. As well as the homosexual community. They are still fighting for civil rights that they deserve as ameican citizens as well as human beings. The F word for them is just as hurtful as the N word for African Americans, which is just as hurtful as the R word for Native Americans. The N word is no longer accepted in this new society. The F word for homosexuals is no longer acceptable in this new society. The same should also go for the R word for Native Americans.

I want to harp back to one of my statements that I made earlier about tradition. This country, in my opinion, were the founders of racism. They were the creators and teachers of racsim. The way Americans have treated people for centuries is just disgraceful to say the least. The way we've treated African Americans, the way we've treated Hispanics. The way we've treated Native Americans and the way we've treated immigrants who have come to this country. We should not be proud of our tradition, we should be focusing on trying to change it. Just like Dan Snyder should be trying to change this name and his team's "tradition".