Bertrand's ACE Debate

Freedom of speech.

We should keep the cultural mascots because that's what the teams were named a long time ago and they should get to continue to name their teams whatever they want because it is freedom of speech. We named the teams to honor the native americans and now they are wanting to change the names, which would be taking our freedom of speech. If certain individuals are offended by the names then they can use their own rights of freedom of speech to demonstrate against these teams.

They are meant.

The teams that have indian names aren’t meant to be rude. The teams that choose these name’s are trying to show respect to the Native American culture. Actually Daniel Snyder when approached about this problem mentioned that the team was named the redskins because of the team's first coach, William Henry, because of his native american heritage so they could honor his heritage and the Native Americans. These teams names are named these names because they want to show the bravery of the native americans and support their culture. Their is no evidence that these mascots represent the entire Native Americans culture.

How many people want to keep it.

In Boiceville, N.Y. home of the Onteora indian high-school teams a protest was lead to get rid of the districts indian mascots. One of the board members, Margaret Carey, helped them succeed in this protest. The district lost their indian mascots on Jan. 24, and the most of the school board members lost their jobs as well when they made this decision. Later a protest was lead to restore the mascot. On Sept. 11 the mascots were restored. So in a time span of 9 months or less it was restored. If people don’t like the mascot then why was it restored in such a short amount of time? Because people want the mascots to stay. This proves that the that the native american people were in the minority when making this decision.

You are basically saying that all teams that have native american names and mascots are meant to stereotype native americans, and you are completely wrong. These teams are trying to support native american culture. Actually Daniel Snyder said that the redskins where named after the first coach, William Henry, to support and respect his native american heritage. Also, just like Logan said, these are ethnic stereotypes. That would be like saying that all caucasian (white) people dress where cowboy hats and ride horse because the dallas cowboys mascot is a cowboy.