So the Washington Redskins finally have a new name after being called the Washington Football Team for the last two years.
At first I’ll admit that I was against all these name changes and taking down statues when it all started. I believed, though controversial, these things were a part of our history, and somehow we were erasing that by doing all these changes.
I now agree that the name changes to remove Native American imagery, and removing the honoring of Confederate soldiers is the right thing to do. We are finally saying to ourselves that we are done disrespecting a particular group of people. I don’t think that any name of a team, or a school, that had reference to Native American’s was done to honor them at the time it was done.
I think now that if we want to actually honor a tribe we know how to do it without being disrespectful at the same time.
And for those who haven’t figured it out yet, the Confederacy lost the Civil War. Monuments honoring the Confederacy leaders should have been taken down a LONG time ago. It would be like East Germany still having monuments of the Third Reich leaders.
Yes, we still want to retain the history of the Confederacy, and teach about it in schools as part of the development of the United States, but we shouldn’t be honoring it. We can acknowledge that the leaders, such as Robert E. Lee, were great men, but we shouldn’t be putting them up in a place of honor.
I know it’s a touchy subject, but we cannot honor those that we defeated, and we shouldn’t be mocking those who’s land we basically stole. We are getting better, but there is still a long way to go.
A Little Bit of This and That 