Why Victory for Native Americans Should Matter to Black People

That football team from the Washington D.C. area is FINALLY changing its racist, disparaging nickname.  Their now retired nickname was an offensive way to refer to Native Americans.  The decision appears to have come about in response to pressure from the team’s sponsor, FedEx, who owns the naming rights for the stadium in which the team plays.  FedEx threatened to end its business dealing with the team if the name was not changed. Executives at FedEx, themselves were facing growing pressure from its investors to demand the name change, and shortly thereafter, Pepsi came on board to also apply such pressure.

The decision does not seem to have come about due to a crisis of consciousness on behalf of the team owner, Dan Snyder, who as recently as 2014 expressed to an ESPN interviewer that he felt there was no issue with the deplorable nickname.

This victory is too small compared to the atrocities that Native Americans face, but still, it is highly significant because this group of people so rarely get a victory at all. More so, it highlights the power of the consumer base to bring about change.  As the saying goes, “Money talks, and…” well you know the rest.

Justice for our Native American brethren is far from achieved by this renaming, but this gesture of reclaiming their dignity is an important first step for a people who have had so much taken from them. It has been too long coming.

But should their victory matter to Black people?

There is no doubt that the newfound enlightenment on the part of the team and their sponsors has arisen out of the Black Lives Matter movement. In other words, BLM has brought some much needed attention to the oppression of Native Americans.  And this is a very good thing.