I do believe teams such as the Cleveland Indians or the Washington Redskins should change their names, but not on the grounds that it is “offensive”. People get offended by all sorts of things including the use of “Happy Holidays” and certain subversive books being taught in schools. Merely labeling the griefs Native Americans have with using their culture as a mascot paints the issue as an emotional feeling or opinion akin to that of someone clutching their pearls and gasping “Oh my word” at the sight of a person with too many tattoos. It should, instead, be acknowledged that many of these names were used derogatorily in reference to Native Americans as they were being systematically wiped out from the lands they occupied by white settlers and the US government itself. Native Americans still are by and large an oppressed people and I cannot imagine the psychological effects it must have to see a stadium full of people “honoring” the heritage that was nearly stamped out by doing a tomahawk chop at a baseball game. Its ignorant cultural appropriation at best and dangerous revisionism at worst. This coupled with the continually reinforced trope of the “noble savage” and the folklore in many American families that they have some Native American blood in there family is just another check on a series of injustices done to the Native American population. Even Elizabeth Warren, whom I respect and admire, fell into this trap by releasing a blood test proving she had some Native American DNA from generations back. She has not lived life as Native American nor has she dealt with any of those struggles, but she for some reason she thinks having possibly some faceless ancestor links her to this culture. Americans as a whole could do a much better job at acknowledging our fuck ups and one way of doing this would be to get rid of these silly mascot names. The culture and people still exist and they are saying its harmful so what is the argument. Just pick an animal or a long gone, over-romanticized western population instead.