The presidential election and the worldwide pandemic colored most of 2020, but the year was also known for another issue that ushered up an equal amount of cheering and grumbling:  the call for removing Native American-themed mascots from sports teams.

In the past year, the Washington Redskins became the Washington Football Team, the Cleveland Indian baseball team announced it would change its mascot for upcoming seasons, Bountiful High School dropped its “Braves,” and a main issue in a school board race centered on Cedar City High School’s flight from the Redmen to the Reds.  

Traditionalists cried the alterations were the result of frenzied political correctness.  Those championing the renaming saw it as a long overdue recognition that mascots demeaned Native American culture.

I sympathize with both camps.  While I agree that “Redskins” relayed a violent, scalp-hungry stereotype and “Redmen” was inappropriate in an age when no team would call itself the “Blackmen,” I saw nothing derogatory about “Braves” or “Indians” and few are complaining about the Kansas City Chiefs.

I guess I don’t put a lot of stock in mascot names.  The Davis Darts don’t conjure up a bunch of drunks at a dartboard in the local pub…The Jordan Beetdiggers don’t reflect a particularly ferocious temperament…The Utah Jazz play in a city where jazz music is as popular as Japanese kabuki…The Utah State Aggies are located in a county where even 30 years ago less than 2,000 workers had agricultural jobs in a 35,000-employee labor force.

It could be a lot worse.  The Los Angeles Angels are affiliated with the Madison, Alabama “Rocket City Trash Pandas,” and I have a difficult time imagining a fan proudly declaring that he or she was a “Trash Panda for life!”

Or how about the fans in Pasco, Washington who show their loyalty to the “Tri-City Dust Devils?” (Maybe that’s why the Orem Owlz relocated to Colorado; an owl is better associated with a high IQ chess club than it is a down-and-dusty baseball team.)

Insulting names should be removed as should demeaning, tone-deaf practices like the Bountiful Braves’ “Trail of Tears” tradition which glossed over a horrific episode in American history.  But erasing any mention of Native Americans is a knee-jerk reaction, just as (in my opinion) obliterating “Dixie” in St. George.

Those clamoring for change (and equally those fighting for things to stay the same) should spend an equal amount of time contributing to Native American causes aimed at eliminating white-imposed poverty on reservations.  If the Atlanta Braves were forced to change their mascot, the prime beneficiary would be the manufacturer of new logo merchandise, not a Native American student in a poorly-funded school with no running water.