I thought all the Indians nicknames were becuse they are a proud people and a awesome fighter , I would look at it as a compliment.
The thing is, they're not really "a people" at all so any depiction lumping them all together is going to be problematic regardless of whether it's intended to be insulting or not. American Indians include many individual nations with completely separate cultures, languages, clothing, architecture, etc.
This would be like if you wanted to come up with a generic "Asian" to use for marketing a product. How do you come up with an image that accurately depicts people from China, India, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iran, Mongolia, etc in one since those countries are so different from one another? The same would apply for Africa or Europe. I think it's easier for us to recognize that there are many cultures and peoples in those continents, but because we've seen so many stereotypical "Indians" we tend to think they're just one group.
As a side note, I think we could all agree that we would absolutely never see a sports team/mascot called "The Asians" or "The Africans". Why would we find those inappropriate or off-limits, but not Indians?
I’ve always thought Redskins was a terribly blatant racial slur.
It is. Look it up in several dictionaries.
-- offensive slang
-- used as a disparaging term
-- dated, offensive
It was listed in Merriam-Webster's first Collegiate Dictionary in 1898 as "often contemptuous" so this is not something new.
