It is my personal opinion that it is appropriate for teams to continue to use the original name of their mascot even if it appropriates another culture. Snyder emphasizes the fact that people take the mascot beyond its means and blow it out of proportion. Snyder himself writes, “…understand that it means...honor, it means respect, it means pride. And it’s that simple” (Wulf). The essence of Snyder’s argument is that many people are offended by the names of mascots yet they fail to understand the meaning of that mascot. I agree with Snyder’s argument, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people believe that mascots were created to be offensive. In a different source, Broecker questions why Native Americans don’t look up to the names …show more content…
After all, many believe that “It confuses my race with a brand name” (Anderson). Anderson’s matter is important because it proves that with any positive connotation, there comes a negative. He acknowledges that mascots were created as racial stereotypes. Anderson himself writes, “Instead of Snyder suggesting the “Indians” have bigger problems than the name of his team, I challenge him to focus on winning, not just football games but also an opportunity for me to simply sit with my grandchildren to watch my former team without having to cut through racial stereotypes” (Anderson). Anderson contradicts himself here because he can’t have it both ways. On one hand, he argues that mascots were created as stereotypes. But on the other hand, he argues that it interferes with the game.
Although stereotypes may seem trivial, it is in fact crucial in today’s concern over naming mascots and racial profiling. Broecker concludes that, “Society is fraught with division. There are more important issues for us to tackle” (Broecker). Ultimately what is at stake here is that in this case indeed it is racial profiling, I still maintain that it is blown out of proportion because mascots are supposed to be an entertainment and asset to the team, not portrayed as a negative racial