Why It Doesn't Matter What Cleveland Calls Its Baseball Team

The Cleveland Indians are no more. The team is expected to announce sometime this week that it will drop the Indians name, a moniker it has had since 1915. 

The Tribe was widely expected to make this move after the Washington Redskins announced it would be known as the Washington Football Club back in July. 

In the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter what Cleveland calls its baseball team or what Washington, D.C. calls its football team. As I argued at the time:

I'm sure that by this time a year from now Washington's NFL club and Cleveland's MLB club will have different names. Activists, the media, politicians and corporations will pat themselves on the back in the name of progress.

But how is changing the name of a football team in Washington, D.C. is going to address poverty of Native Americans living on reservations? And how does changing the name of the baseball team in Cleveland alleviate violence against Native American women?

I can answer both these questions. It won't.

Then there is the fact that Native Americans are actually killed by police at a higher than African Americans. Changing the names of professional sports teams won't change this fact nor will it draw further attention to this injustice.

Honestly, nearly five and a half months after writing the above, there is really nothing I can add to it. So I won't.