The Washington NFL team is changing its name, in response to recent pressure from major corporate sponsors, and after decades of Native Americans pleading for the club to listen to what they were saying: That the “Redskins” mascot and imagery disparaged and offended the very people the football team claimed it was honoring.
Monday’s announcement, that the team will be “retiring the Redskins name and logo,” is at once both a cause for celebration and a representation of the structural racism that our country was built upon. “The Redskins represent … our exhaustion,” was how Stephanie Vielle, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, put it in a conversation with Sports Illustrated six years ago.