The names of the games

When Washington, D.C.’s NFL team announced in July it was dropping its controversial “Redskins” moniker, media and activists hailed the move as a long time coming.

Team owner Daniel Snyder evidently didn’t make the decision out of a sense of guilt over using a nickname that many deemed an anti–Native American slur, a name the team bore for nearly 90 years and which Snyder once vowed never to change. Instead, he was bowing to financial pressure from multiple team sponsors—most notably FedEx, whose name graces the team’s stadium, FedEx Field, and whose CEO, Fred Smith, is among the team’s minority stakeholders.

As he considers how to rebrand his team, Snyder has even leaned into what news media nationwide have done for several years now, calling his club the “Washington Football Team” for the time being. A gold “W” will replace the traditional Native American head on the team’s burgundy helmets this season, assuming the season isn’t canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.

At the height of national upheaval targeting anything perceived to symbolize racism, the football team nickname that was arguably the most offensive in all of sports is finally gone. Now that the phenomenon known as “cancel culture”—the shaming, boycotting, or getting rid of any person, brand, or thing (statue, flag, TV show, etc.) that certain groups deem offensive—has claimed a perhaps righteous victory over the Redskins nickname, more may follow: Baseball’s Cleveland Indians, for instance, is considering a rebranding of its own. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has signaled it may drop its Confederate-themed nickname, the Rebels, as well.

All of which raises the question: What other nicknames might cancel culture claim?

Two teams with seemingly innocuous nicknames—baseball’s Texas Rangers and college sports’ LSU Tigers—have already found themselves as candidates.

The Rangers’ name pays homage to the Lone Star State’s renowned lawmen. However, Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, a native Texan, has blasted the moniker: Extensively quoting Doug J. Swanson’s book Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers, Chapman declared the law enforcement agency’s roughly 200-year history to be inextricably intertwined with “savagery, lawlessness and racism.” The baseball team’s name, then, “is an affront to Hispanics, African Americans, and anyone who favors racial equity,” argued Chapman.

For that reason, Chapman said, the League of United Latin American Citizens has protested the name since the former Washington Senators relocated to Texas following the 1971 season.

The LSU Tigers, meanwhile, are not named for the vicious striped jungle cat, surprisingly: They’re named for a unit of Confederate soldiers from Louisiana “who seemed to have the faculty of getting into the hardest part of the fighting and staying there,” wrote the school’s first football coach, Charles E. Coates, in 1896.

Few people today are likely to associate LSU’s mascot with soldiers who fought to preserve the institution of slavery. But since the mascot’s historical roots have surfaced, the Tigers’ name may soon be endangered.

Cancel culture has not yet targeted baseball’s San Diego Padres, but it’s easy to see that happening: The team draws its name from the 18th-century Spanish priests who founded 21 Catholic missions that still dot California’s coast. Many Californians associate the missions with the conquest and forced conversion of the state’s indigenous peoples. It’s a big reason why Carmel High School, a Monterey-area public school whose teams are also called the Padres, is considering dropping the nickname.

Will cancel culture know when to stop? Can it discern when a name is inoffensive? For example, not all sports teams with Native American–themed monikers disparage Native Americans. College sports’ Florida State Seminoles and minor league baseball’s Spokane Indians both use their names with permission from local tribes, which partner with the teams as a way to raise awareness of tribal history and culture.

Ultimately, while sensitivity to historically oppressed groups is appropriate, cancel culture ought not target those who already display it.