WASHINGTON \u2014 The Association on American Indian Affairs is condemning U.S President Donald Trump\u2019s call for Washington\u2019s football team to revert to its old name, saying any claim that Indigenous nations support the use of Indigenous-themed mascots is false.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese mascots and names do not honour Native Peoples — they reduce us to caricatures,\u201d the Association on American Indian Affairs said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur diverse Peoples and cultures are not relics of the past or mascots for entertainment. Native Nations are sovereign, contemporary cultures who deserve respect and self-determination, not misrepresentation.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, in a social media post, Trump threatened to hold up a new stadium deal if the NFL\u2019s Washington Commanders team doesn\u2019t return to its old name, which was considered offensive by Indigenous Americans. In his post, the president claimed that \u201cIndians are being treated very unfairly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Commanders and the District of Columbia government announced a deal earlier this year to build a new home for the football team. It\u2019s not clear if Trump can even delay the deal.<\/p>\n
The president also called for Cleveland\u2019s baseball team to revert to its former name, which was also seen as offensive to Indigenous Peoples.<\/p>\n
In an earlier post, Trump called the team the \u201cThe Washington \u2018Whatever\u2019s\u201d\u2019 and claimed Indigenous people \u201cin massive numbers, want this to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!\u201d Trump posted.<\/p>\n
The Association on American Indian Affairs is the is the oldest national Native American non-profit in the United States and has been operating for more than 100 years.<\/p>\n
It said Indigenous communities and experts have repeatedly and clearly said that these themed mascots are offensive and dehumanizing.<\/p>\n
The association pointed to research that found that these mascots are consistently associated with negative health outcomes for Indigenous people, especially youth, and lead to lower self-esteem, increased psychological distress and harm to community well-being.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no genuine respect for Native Nations here — only empty gestures and political theatre. Claiming that \u2018Indians are being treated very unfairly\u2019 while simultaneously gutting Native programs is hypocrisy at its worst,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
The Washington football team and Cleveland baseball team announced their name changes in 2020 as many sports franchises — including some in Canada — stopped using similar names and logos in response to decades of pushback from Indigenous activists and communities.<\/p>\n
The year 2020 saw the emergence of a wave of racial justice protests triggered by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died during an arrest in Minneapolis. Since his return to the White House, Trump has rolled back many of the changes made in the wake of Floyd\u2019s death, including diversity, equity and inclusion programs throughout government.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Football League team in Edmonton also dropped its former name in 2020 after years of criticism from representatives of the Inuit community, who called it offensive. The team was ultimately renamed the Elks the following year but the change divided some team supporters.<\/p>\n
A new regime at the Elks has been subtly embracing the old name again this year — and even put up a sign with the old name in a slogan above the entrance to the Elks\u2019 locker room.<\/p>\n
— With files from The Associated Press<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 21, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The Association on American Indian Affairs is condemning U.S President Donald Trump\u2019s call for Washington\u2019s football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,47,514,715,82],"class_list":["post-13928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-national","tag-nfl","tag-social","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}