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Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

If these groups didn't take the stance of "People are not mascots" you might have a point, but the fact of the matter is that this is the stand these groups always take. So by their definition it is wrong to name any team after a group of people.

You are commenting on a different thing than I commented on. I was answering to the question "why is it bad to caricaturize native Americans" which is a somewhat different question than "is it OK for the Chiefs to be called the Chiefs".

If they want to get rid of offensive names names like the Redskins fine, but there is nothing offensive about Chiefs, Seminoles or others. They are no more offensive than the Vikings, Celtics, Fighting Irish... etc.

While I don't necessarily disagree with your basic stance, I'll make a few comments.

First, "these groups" quite obviously don't always take the stance you claim they take. In fact the last article linked in this thread described a decisively different view from the one you're claiming.

"It’s a key point, then, that Learned and his group are not pushing for the team to ban fans from wearing war bonnets or war paint, or any other misuse of American Indian symbols. Learned admits he is personally offended by people wearing war bonnets without regard to the cultural significance they carry — were worn by men preparing for real battle, and possible death. To make this point in his meeting with the Chiefs, Learned asked how it would look if people dressed up as U.S. soldiers to watch a football game.

But Learned’s group is hoping to win the battle for hearts and minds with words and thought, not lawyers and aggression."

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt...#storylink=cpy

What you were using is a so-called a "weak man argument".

(In short it's like the straw man argument, but instead of attacking a completely fabricated enemy, you attack what you see as "the weakest link", generally the most radical or irrational subgroup among the group you wish to attack. In effect your projecting that groups weak opinion as representative of the whole groups opinion. The "weak man" is a really powerful rhetorical tool, or a trap that's really easy to fall into, depending on whether or not you're using deliberately. It's also great for starting flame wars due to it's divisive nature.)

Second;
Whether or not something is racist does not depend on what you do, but how it affects people.

So basicly, it's irrelevant that the Chiefs is technically the same kind of name as the Vikings or the Fighting Irish, since the Irish or the Scandinavians are not in significant threat of suffering from racism but the native Americans are. As long as native Americans are suffering from racism, simple inconsiderate action can cause indirect harm to them.

Note that I'm not saying that the Chiefs being Chiefs is harmful as such. More importantly, the native American representatives that the Chiefs are working with are not saying that either. What they don't want to see is the caricatures, and they want to help the Chiefs and their fans to be able tell the caricature apart from the reality. Which can be surprisingly hard, if you don't actually know that culture.