Should the Edmonton Eskimos change their name?
The answer, in my opinion is yes and so should the Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians and any other professional or amateur sports team that features a name that negatively depicts an ethnic group.
That being said the Eskimos are probably the least offensive on the above list, not that it makes it right. But then who I am I to judge. It is the people who belong to whatever ethnic group in question who should be the ultimate judge.
And if people like Natan Obed, president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization representing 60,000 people, says the term is offensive and derogatory and should be changed then the owners of Edmonton’s CFL franchise should give it serious consideration.
Edmonton mayor Don Iveson agrees saying in an interview with CBC in November that amid the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and ongoing reconciliation efforts that the name should be changed.
Unfortunately, I must admit I haven’t given the issue as much thought, as it deserves.
As a life long B.C. Lions and Vancouver Canucks fan the only thing I really called either the Eskimos or the Oilers, while watching any of the games on TV was, depending on the score, was probably something I shouldn’t repeat here.
Especially this season, at least for football, where my Lions decided to take a break after 21 straight years of making the postseason, but I digress.
However, the topic of whether or not the Eskimos or any other sport team that has a name that could be considered derogatory to a specific ethnic group became more prevalent in my thoughts after I covered a recent peewee hockey tournament where two teams, not Barrhead, had a name or logo that Aboriginal peoples in all likelihood would consider in appropriate.
I don’t want to throw the teams, under the bus, so I won’t name them, but it surprised me. After all, the issue is far from new. Professional sports teams such as the Eskimos have had to defend their name from detractors for well over a decade. And unlike Edmonton’s CFL franchise, whose name has roots that go back as far as 1895, have relatively little history behind them.
Nor would a peewee hockey team have the same rebranding costs associated with a name change. A set of jerseys and basically you’re done.
Are there bigger problems in the world to debate than whether to change a sports team’s name? You bet, especially when it comes to some of the serious problems our First Nations peoples have to face, such as lack of adequate housing in many of their communities. However, unlike those problems this one has an easy fix, show respect to each other’s cultures naming your sports teams something they don’t consider derogatory.
