The NCAA has taken a small but important step to ending the offensive use of Native American tribal names and other references as mascots and names of sports teams.
The NCAA Executive Committee announced Friday that objectionable depictions or references to racial, ethnic or national origin -- in mascots, nicknames or other forms -- will not be welcome at championships starting Feb. 1. Any team uniforms that show objectionable imagery will have to be altered or changed.
Some schools are predictably upset, and some American Indians aren't satisfied, but the NCAA has been working on this for some time. Several schools got rid of their mascots altogether even before this ruling, and the NCAA had asked schools to study whether their nicknames were offensive, and if not, why not. One school sought and got an exemption, because of its roots as a college for American Indians, but another (Florida State) sought and did not get the exemption. This seems the right way to go about this.
Major League Baseball, the NFL and other professional sports leagues really ought to be on this by now. Washington changed the name of its NBA basketball team from the Bullets because of the city's high number of gun murders, yet their NFL team still uses a racial slur for its name.
The Seattle Times refuses to use these nicknames in its sports report, referring to the Cleveland baseball team, etc. More media should do the same. Now.
STORY HERE
5 days ago
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