Tommy Yazzie, superintendent of the Red Mesa school district on the Navajo Nation reservation, grew up when Navajo children were forced into boarding schools to disconnect them from their culture. Some were punished for speaking their native language. Today, he sees environmental issues as the biggest threat to his people.
The high school football team in his district is the Red Mesa Redskins.
?We just don?t think that (name) is an issue,? Yazzie said. ?There are more important things like busing our kids to school, the water settlement, the land quality, the air that surrounds us. Those are issues we can take sides on.?
?Society, they think it?s more derogatory because of the recent discussions,? Yazzie said. ?In its pure form, a lot of Native American men, you go into the sweat lodge with what you?ve got ? your skin. I don?t see it as derogatory.?
Neither does Eunice Davidson, a Dakota Sioux who lives on the Spirit Lake reservation in North Dakota. ?It more or less shows that they approve of our history,? she said.
North Dakota was the scene of a similar controversy over the state university?s Fighting Sioux nickname. It was decisively scrapped in a 2012 statewide vote ? after the Spirit Lake reservation voted in 2010 to keep it.
Davidson said that if she could speak to Dan Snyder, the Washington team owner who has vowed never to change the name, ?I would say I stand with him . we don?t want our history to be forgotten.?
