Opinion: There’s a few American sports teams with problematic Native American themes that have and will need to create a new image. Why are the alternatives so lame?
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Rebranding from racist imagery is always necessary, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be boring.
Sports teams have seen this recently with the renaming of the Cleveland Guardians in the MLB and the professional football team in Washington. For over a year, I was repeatedly annoyed with the fact they didn’t have an official team name. Then they unveiled their new franchise name, and it was so lame I actually started justifying them being called just “the Football Team.” It’s direct and earnest with an element of mystique.
That’s where the standard is with renaming these teams: you have to beat just calling yourself a team. It’s turning out to be harder than you’d think. The Washington Commanders has zero ring to it (and the way their organization looks right now, they won’t get any soon).
Of course, they fully needed to change their name from what it was. In fact, the original name is so bad I don’t feel comfortable saying it now; it was genuinely just a racial slur. It’s still hard to believe public broadcasters up until 2019 loudly shouted that after someone on the team walked a ball over the goal line.
And now we have the Washington Commanders, which sounds like the cross-town rival in a high school drama like “Riverdale.” It doesn’t even roll off the tongue. I can’t even recall what their logo looks like off the top of my head. The entire rebranding is just so boring, and it wasn’t like there was a lack of options.
One campaign for a name was the Washington Red Tails, paying homage to the first group of Black pilots to serve and fight in the U.S. military. It’s honorable, conveniently derivative of the original name, and much stronger than just Commanders. Personally, I wanted them to go with this name, but I understand why they might not have. While there was vocal support from some of the surviving airmen, there was a worry about the naming being purely for virtue signaling.
Changing the name to honor Black Americans after having the most racist team name in sports is pretty dodging. Almost like Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones hiring an ASL translator for an entirely instrumental national anthem right after pictures emerged of him participating in the Little Rock Nine protests.
The Washington Red Wolves was another favorite for the renaming, and again, is miles better than the Commanders. The name was dropped because of the trademark battling the team would have to do, which I think is a cop-out. Owner Dan Snyder has proved he loves a legal battle mid-season; it’s like his favorite thing to do. Regardless, they’re stuck with that name for now, and I’m forced to say it.
The Cleveland Guardians is another name I’m stuck saying. The name itself isn’t even that terrible sonically; it’s just so vague. At least with a Commander, I can picture what that looks like in my head. What exactly is a Guardian? That could range anywhere from the Spartans at Thermopylae, NordVPN or the Safeway employees watching the self-checkout lines. The name alludes to the eight statues outside their stadium called the Guardians of Traffic, which unfortunately is a significantly less cool thing to guard than any of the other aforementioned guardians.
It wasn’t for lack of options, again. The team at one point reported they had jotted down well over a thousand different name options. Some more popular options among fans were the Cleveland Spiders (unique, spooky, the chance of a World Series Halloween game), Cleveland Blues (smooth, historical, just rename the Cavaliers to the Burgundys to complete the set) or I would have even taken the Cleveland Commodores (alliteration?).
It’s apparent that teams with racist Native American imagery in their names and logos can’t rebrand without making it lame, so it looks like I have to do it for them. Team owners, bookmark this for future reference.
The Chicago Blackhawks are trying to honor a Sauk leader named Black Hawk, but doing it with a caricature of a Native American for a logo doesn’t stamp that message quite right. The local Portland Winterhawks had a nearly identical logo until last year, and the new one looks way cooler and way less racist (two pluses). All they did was make a hawk with some snowy mountains. It’s really that simple for Chicago. Just make a hawk with black feathers.
Native communities have also asked the Kansas City Chiefs to rebrand and cease the use of war paint, the “tomahawk chop,” war drums and other appropriating traditions. The city even appropriated being a city in Kansas. They aren’t located in Kansas at all; they’re in Missouri. So, to rebrand, the team should be known as the Kansas City, Missouris until further notice.
