George Preston Marshall, a notorious racist, was the original owner of a team deemed by many to have a racist name, the Washington Redskins. That was back in the early 1900s, and since then, things have changed; segregation is illegal and racism is highly frowned upon, yet at the same time, nothing has changed. Many people have protested against the name, calling it offensive to the natives of this land. In my opinion, it’s completely true! It’s not just the name either; the logo of the Redskins humanizes the issue. Other teams have had this issue with their logos, like the Cleveland Indians. They had a logo that also humanized their name but they changed it to a simple “C” which upsets no one. The Redskins should do the same thing. If they make their logo a “W” then all this controversy go away. It wouldn’t cost them very much money because they get new uniforms every year anyway. Most of their argument is that it would cost billions of dollars for them to change it. It might, be expensive, but with the way times are changing, they will most likely have to change it in the future, so they might as well do it now. The United States Patent and Trademark Office deemed the name as “disparaging to Native Americans.” 

Many fans would be upset because they have gear, but people can still wear their gear. It’s still the same color and nobody looks at the exact details of the gear, they just look at the color. I’m sure that many people will make a big deal about it, but I think keeping people from being offended is more important than what the new gear looks like. There are many ways to look at this situation, but I think it is offensive in every way. 

We know the awful things we did to the Native Americans. This team was founded around that time with a racist owner who was trying to make a statement. That doesn’t mean we have to still honor that statement, it’s not like when we’re in the south we are singing the confederate national anthem! We don’t need to keep honoring awful things that happened, we can remember but not honor! It’s not quite the same thing, but it’s like the arguments with the Confederate statues. It’s part of our history but it also reminds people of awful things we did. I think that if another protest happens soon, the team will feel a lot more pressure to change it because it’s something people really care about and don’t want to be offended by.  No matter what, the Redskins name and logo will always be offensive.