Corporations have no ethics or conscience — only a blind devotion to the bottom line. That is ultimately what did in Kaepernick and that is also what is doing in the Redskins and Indians nicknames too.
They're just not good for business.
However, don’t get it twisted, the exact same dynamics that drove the Kaepernick blackballing are what is driving these decisions too. They’re ALL rooted in political correctness, just coming from different ideological perspectives.
I know that’s going to be difficult for some people to accept or wrap their minds around, but if you think about it, it’s very obviously true.
To take it a step further, I think this one is even more cynical than that. The more I read about this situation, the more I am convinced that this was very likely all staged from the start.
It’s just moving too fast forward to have gone down any other way.
Dan Snyder is openly dead set against changing the team’s name for years and years and years; and then suddenly he gets a letter from FedEx and within hours it’s a done deal and they’re talking about new nicknames and logos?
That does not add up.
Also, FedEx is more than just a title sponsor. Fred Jones, FedEx’s CEO, is the second largest shareholder in the Redskins organization after only Dan Snyder.
I think the NFL and it’s corporate partners have probably been pressuring the Redskins behind the scenes to change their nickname for some time now. Also, I think Snyder desperately covets the old RFK Stadium land and he knows that the only way he’s ever going to get it is by changing the name.
However, this has become such a hot button issue that it’s hard for teams to make changes even if they want to, for fear of alienating half their fans no matter what they do.
This newly sparked civil rights movement provides them with the cover they’ve probably long sought.
Now, they can say to their fans of all ideologies, “We’re finally doing the right thing, but we didn’t do it to bow to political pressure from ‘woke hipsters.’ We did it because our corporate sponsors mandated it...and also because the timing was right to retire the nickname and blah, blah, blah.”
I think this one is a done deal. I also think it’s the right decision.
I’m slightly more conflicted on the Indians name change. Chief Wahoo has long been an embarrassing logo. The name itself though, is a somewhat more complicated issue.
Again though, if they were ever going to make a change, now is the time to do it because you have the political will right now to make it happen. Now, all they have to do is just create a bogeyman in the form of a corporation or a governmental entity and they‘ll be all set.