There has been a nearly decade-long debate about whether the Washington DC football team should change its name to something less offensive to Native Americans. The term Redskins, like any name referring to someone’s skin, will eventually be modified to something more acceptable. After all, Miami University in Ohio abandoned the Redskins more than twenty years ago and adopted the RedHawks name.
Similar complaints have been filed against Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves, the National Hockey League’s Chicago Blackhawks, and, to a lesser extent, the Kansas City Chiefs. Each of these teams has a name that could be seen as offensive to Native Americans.
A team that has somehow avoided such scrutiny, though its name certainly has more negative associations for Native Americans than any of those mentioned above. Why hasn’t there been a call for the Texas Rangers to change their name?
A cursory review of the origin of the creation of the military force called the Texas Rangers explains that they were assembled in 1837 for the sole purpose of killing the Cherokee and Comanche tribes. After virtually eliminating these Native American groups, Texas President Sam Houston tripled the size of the Texas Rangers to fight the people on the southern border in the US-Mexican War.
Since then, the squad is basically used for law enforcement and border patrol to keep Mexicans and Latin Americans from various nations out of the United States. They may very well be a necessary force, like our local police or sheriff’s officers, but they certainly aren’t a group worthy of having a professional sports team named after them.
Today’s game is rife with players of Mexican descent, as is its history since the post-WWII era. Given the non-baseball background of the Texas Rangers, it must be somewhat difficult for minorities to play on the team of the same name.
One can only imagine the discomfort of having Joakim Soria, who was born in Mexico, serve as the closer for the 2014 Texas Rangers. Ironically, he was saving games for an organization named after a force created to keep him and his compatriots out. from the US
Baseball has come a long way in reaching out to minorities in recent decades, including retiring Jackie Robinson’s number 42 for every team. They have also funded many programs to reach out to youth in the slums and have established numerous academies throughout Central America.
Now the Commissioner’s office needs to encourage the Texas Rangers to change their team name to one that doesn’t appear to honor a group whose purpose was to fight minorities.