The Cleveland Indians have changed their nickname to the Guardians effective next year.( Guardians of what? Foster children?) There's no more Washington Redskins. Until they come up with another name they're called the Washington Football Team. The Atlanta Braves, the Florida State Seminoles and eventually the Kansas City Chiefs will lose their monikers in the next few years.
Okay, with the Redskins I get it. ( And by the way DC didn't pick that name. They got it the same way Atlanta got the Braves. In the 1930s the Boston Redskins moved to Washington.) That name is widely seen as a denigrating term. They've been the Redskins for over ninety years and I think that for the next ninety they should be called the Washington Palefaces.
But with the others it seems to me to be political correctness taken to absurdity. Liberals see some fragment of Native Americans protesting these names and they knee jerk ”me too.” I don't think the average Native American wakes up worried about the name of the Cleveland Indians.
Yes we took their land and killed the vast majority of them, but taking on the names of their warriors ( will San Francisco, that liberal enclave, escape?) seems to me to be an act of contrition, admiration for the vanquished foe. I'm at least 1/16 Cherokee just on my father's side. (Hell, maybe I can open a casino.) and I don't feel any insult to my Indian heritage of which I am proud by Cleveland naming its team the Indians.
And what of other ethnic or cultural groups with sports teams named after them? New Englanders aren't up in arms over New York calling their team the Yankees. I'm part Cherokee but with my Scotch Irish heritage I'm considerably more Celtic. I'm not at all upset that Boston named their team after my clan-- even though they mispronounced it. Similarly I don't hear rednecks up in arms over the North Carolina Tar Heels, nor rodeo performers bothered by the Dallas Cowboys.
So the Braves will be forced to change their name and tomahawk logo. We can go back to being the Bean Eaters but that's not very southern. Better would be to be called the Atlanta Grits. Grit is a good thing, somewhat akin to bravery, but that's not my first choice. Rather than revive an old Boston name or naming ourselves after cuisine I think we should bring back an old Atlanta professional baseball name. We should be rebranded as the Atlanta Black Crackers. That would be authentic and would represent the majority of Georgians.
Ellis "Da" Millsaps is a recovering Attorney but has worn many hats over the years: father, bus boy, stand-up comedian, novelist, wiffle ball player, rock'n'roll band manager, and at one time wrote a popular and funny column for The Covington News. A Fannin Co. mountain boy originally, Mr. Millsaps now stays at the mill village of Porterdale by way of 20 years in Mansfield. Usually funny and at times irreverent and subversive, he leans left in his political philosophy but can always be counted on for a pretty darn good write-up. The Chronicles are proud to have him involved...
