One of the oldest professional football teams in the United States is finally confronting a franchise identity after decades of criticism that it's racist -- but experts say that's no reason for Canada to be smug about its own troubled history with Indigenous Peoples.
Washington's National Football League team, sideswiped by the racial reckoning that began upending institutions and toppling statues across the country two months ago, announced this week it was dropping an 87-year-old name and logo long deemed offensive to members of the Indigenous community.
And where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made Indigenous priorities a cornerstone of his Liberal government's stated agenda, albeit to mixed reviews, the closest U.S. President Donald Trump has come has been to slap a nickname of his own -- "Pocahontas" -- on Democrat firebrand Sen. Elizabeth Warren for once claiming a measure of Native American lineage.
Two separate inquiries, she noted -- the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's exploration of residential schools, which released its final report in 2015, and the public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, which wrapped up last year -- concluded that Canada had been engaged in long-standing and ongoing campaigns of genocide.
"Nation-states use sports, such as football and soccer and hockey, to shape their citizenry," Gehl said. "Icons and symbols are really powerful tools for shaping our consciousness. And if nation-states are allowing team sports to use these racist icons and names, then their citizenry is going to be racist."
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