USA TODAY US Edition

Villanova, Virginia 1-2 in hoops poll

Cavaliers gain 8 first-place votes to close gap

- Nancy Armour Columnist

MINNEAPOLI­S – No more excuses, team from Washington.

The Cleveland Indians have finally done the right thing, announcing Monday that they will drop their racist Chief Wahoo logo as of 2019. Now it’s time for Daniel Snyder to do the same with his team’s virulent nickname.

Long past time, really.

“When a team like the Cleveland Indians finally changes, the other ones are going to have to do something,” Clyde Bellecourt, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, told USA TODAY. “It’s going to put a lot of public pressure on them from other people.”

It’s both embarrassi­ng and reprehensi­ble that, in 2018, Snyder can still cling to such a hateful name and logo. Imagine the uproar if a team had a nickname and logo that ridiculed whites. Or Latinos. Or Jews. It would be roundly criticized, as it should be.

Yet Snyder has stubbornly defended his team’s right to be overtly and proudly bigoted, claiming the nickname means too much to the team’s longtime fans or that it somehow “honors” Native Americans.

Spare me.

For those who think redskin is “just” a name, a little history lesson is needed. While the name’s origin has been widely debated, what is not is that, in 1863, the Winona (Minn.) Daily Republican ran an announceme­nt touting the state’s offer of a $200 bounty for every “red-skin sent to Purgatory.”

Yes, that means exactly what it says. The government was trying to entice its residents to kill Native Americans, likely so they could take their land.

If that’s not racist, I don’t know what is.

“There are tribes that have been erased from the face of the earth,” Bellecourt said. “Anywhere from 16 million to 35 million native people have been erased since the days of Columbus and the Conquistad­ors.”

The Washington team doubled down on this with its original fight song, which included the words, “Scalp ’em, swamp ’em — We will take ’em big score. Read ’em, weep ’em, touchdown! We want heap more.”

But please, let’s talk about how the team has “honored” Native Americans.

It is beyond tiresome to have to keep explaining to privileged people — and by privileged, I mean white — why it’s not OK to denigrate a class of people, particular­ly when it’s for amusement or entertainm­ent. Why it is not up to them to determine what is offensive or demeaning to minorities.

Yes, some Native Americans have said they are fine with the Redskins name. But others have said they are not, and that’s the view that tips the scales. If one person is offended or feels marginaliz­ed, that is one person too many.

Major League Baseball Commission­er Rob Manfred recognized this, pushing Indians owner Paul Dolan over the last year to drop the logo.

“The club ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriat­e for on-field use in Major League Baseball,” Manfred said in a statement.

Perhaps Manfred should have a chat with his NFL counterpar­t.

Snyder could not be as intractabl­e as he’s been without the support and cooperatio­n of NFL Commission­er Roger Goodell. At the Super Bowl four years ago, Goodell brushed off questions about changing the nickname, saying it had been “presented in a way that honors Native Americans.”

That view has not changed, spokesman Brian McCarthy said Monday.

Once again, it is not up to Snyder or Goodell or any other white man or woman to make that determinat­ion. If Native Americans want the name changed, it should be changed.

“For too long, people of color have been stereotype­d with these kinds of hurtful symbols — and no symbol is more hurtful than the football team in the nation’s capital using a dictionary­defined racial slur as its team name,” Oneida Nation Representa­tive Ray Halbritter said in a statement.

Snyder once insisted he will “never” change his team’s name. But history has a way of righting our worst behaviors, and rememberin­g those who stood in the way.

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