Cleveland Indians changing name after 105 years

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"A team spokesman told The Associated Press the franchise has no immediate comment on the report.

The Times said the team could make a formal announcement later this week. It’s not known when the name change will take effect or if the team has settled on a new moniker."

https://apnews.com/article/nfl-mlb-foot ... 72536aa22f

About time. Now one has to wonder what replacement name they'll go with.
This article has several team name ideas: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/clev ... t-options/

I personally like the Naps (their name before they were called the Indians), Lakers, Spiders (cleveland's defunct national league team name), and the Buckeyes (cleveland's old negro league team name).

So even if the name was intending to honor them, it’s offensive?

Do a thought experiment.

Substitute the word "Indian" with the name of another comparable human group (ie race).

The Cleveland Negros.

The Cleveland East Asians

The Cleveland White Folks.
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Would you be ok with a name like one of the above?

If it was meant to honor or respect the group in question, I would not be offended.

If it was meant to demonize said groups, then I would be offended.

Really????

You would be okay with the "Cleveland Jews", or the "Cleveland Whitefolks"?

To me both would sound quite...yucky.... as names, regardless of the intent.

"The Cleveland White Folks" would honestly be kinda hilarious. Sounds more like a retirement home than a football team.

It wasn't quite as bad as "Redskins".

It can be meant to honor them, but it can also be misguided and offensive. It's possible to try and honor a given group in a way that ends up being offensive or insensitive.

Its a gray area.

There are three "Indigenous American" themed names in the NFL that I can think of off of the top of my head.

They are the Washington Redskins, The Cleveland Indians, and the Atlanta Braves.

I don't see any problem with the "Atlanta Braves". That's no worse than the "Minnesota Vikings".

Naming teams after ancient warriors that may be associated with particular modern ethnic groups (Spartans, Vikings, etc) is ok.

On the other hand - way back in the late Sixties- when I was 12 and just becoming aware of the NFL-it was also the era of the civil rights movement. I was already wincing at the "old fashionedness" of the name of my city's team. I remember thinking about how here Martin Luther King is imploring us to judge folks by the content of their character and not...and here we have a team with skin color right in it's name!

Even then I felt that they could keep the Indian guy's profile and the tomahawk imagery on our logo, but wished that they could change the name to "the Washington Warriors" say.

I agree that "the Indians" is not as bad as "the Redskins", but it's worse than "the Braves".

One could counter that "the Cleveland Indians" is no different than "the Montreal Canadiens", "the Boston Celtics", or "Notre Dames' Fighting Irish".

Maybe. Maybe not.

Problem one: all three of those teams named after European descent ethnic groups were founded by folks who actually were of those ethnic groups, and represent cities largely populated by folks of the said ethnic group: the first being French Canadians, the other two being American descendants of Irish immigrants (a subset of the Celts). Not so the "Indians".

Problem two: peaches to pears. French Canadians, and Irish, are equivalent to...Navajos, Iroquois, or to Aztecs. Specific ethnic groups. Not to the entire race of people who populated pre Columbian north and south america, known as "Indians". The equivalent to "Indians" would be "White Folks", or "the Yellow Perils", or "the Black Africans". Names like that, which would be problematic to say the least I would think.

What about calling the team Barbarians?

"Barbarian" just means "uncivilized", or "a cut above savage, but still not civilized". So it doesnt lend itself to a team name. It applies to any race. Its a deragotary term about your level of societal development. Not your race, or ethnicity as such. Except, like savage, it tends to be applied to races and ethnic groups that the speaker doesnt like.

Its double think. You can name a team something that implies savagery on the playing field, but you cant name a team "the savages", or "the barbarians".

Originally the word meant 'anyone who doesnt speak Greek'. To the ancient Greeks all foreign languages sounded like "bar-bar-bar". So non Greek folks who spoke funny were all "barbarians".

Then Romans appropriated the word, and used it to mean everyone outside the vast roman empire. Since pretty much the whole civilized world known to the Romans had been conquered by the Romans in effect it also meant "uncivilized". The folks to the south of the Roman ruled parts of the north africa were "Barbarians". And the tribes of the Sahara are still called "the Berbers". And the wild tribes north of the Danube and east of the Rhine in the heart of Europe who were still not conquered by Rome were also called "Barbarians". The later finnally overwhelmed the Roman Empire when it collapsed, and the Dark Ages ensued.

You could name a team after one of the tribes of the later group maybe. Like "the Visigoths", or "the Huns", because those tribes no longer exist today as extant ethnic groups.

They could change it to Cleveland Cowboys?

Good idea but there's already the Dallas Cowboys.

Not to mention "the Denver Broncos".