If honoring a culture is offensive, then what isn’t?

First, I am not a Native American, although I do have some Cherokee blood in me. I say this because a lot of people wanting to make the point I plan on making will try and use a small percentage of Native American blood as a trump card, when that is not fair nor intellectually honest.

I have been a Braves fan since my dad took me to Game 3 of the National League Division Series in 2001, when we swept Houston. I was 8 years old, in the third grade. I remember it being the first thing new to think about and found it very exciting, since it was a distraction from the daily post-9/11 chaos that every adult seemed to be talking about.

Here is the logic I think most people in the current climate are missing: Political and social climate may usually be a driving force for change, but that does not make them the decisive factor in right or wrong. They are subjective things affecting an objective issue. Here are the facts: The Braves are not the same type of moniker as the Redskins or the Indians. Redskins is a term used by whites to belittle Native Americans. I am shocked that it hasn’t been forced to change already. Indians is a moniker used to categorize Native Americans and create a certain image. Some Natives find that offensive; others embrace the term. Let them decide how to go forward. But the term Braves is nowhere near offensive in nature or intent, nor is the Tomahawk Chop. If honoring a culture is offensive, then what I know, I get it, I’m a white guy, so my opinion means little to the culture Marxists trying to run the political forum in this country, but logic is logic. There is no correlation between the term Braves and the term Redskins. The term is a name honoring a warrior tribe which embraces the spirit of the Native Americans, which was swept under the rug by whites centuries ago, and honoring it the way the Braves do is the of racist.

People will argue we shouldn’t appropriate a culture. However, I would say that the claim we are appropriating anything is racist and offensive, as it implies we are doing something to make it acceptable for us to use, when in its own nature, it is fine and acceptable. We are honoring it as it is and was. And to clump in the term Braves with offensive names like Redskins just displays their ignorance of what it is they think they are talking about. Their logic is that any mention of Native American culture in sports or competition is offensive, which in turn categorizes the group as a whole and puts them in a box, which I’m pretty sure is what they think they’re claiming using the term Indians or Braves is doing.

The madness of today’s society is a sickness that has now very evidently begun to eat itself up, like a snake chasing its own tail. In a desperate attempt to quell white guilt complexes, people, most of whom have affiliation with Native Americans whatsoever, are lashing out and projecting racism onto others. I completely support the removal of the name Redskins and stand firmly on the ground that the term Braves is in no way offensive or related to the same neighborhood of connotation that Redskins is.

STEVEN PELKY

JASON GETZ / FOR THE AJC Last year in Game 5 of the NLDS, the Braves scaled back the playing of the accompanying music and didn’t pass out the usual foam tomahawks to fans. This move saw frustration from fans but is the kind of progress that needs to be made, one reader says.