The US president has ordered the Washington Commanders NFL team to reinstate their former name. For Native people, this is deeply troubling
by Troy Littledeer
President Trump has come off the bench to pick a fight no one wanted to have.
He has ordered the Washington Commanders NFL team to reinstate their former name, the Redskins, going so far as threatening to block their application to build a new stadium. As part of his “Miga” campaign, or Make Indians Great Again, Trump said that the Commanders’ existing name was “dumb” and claimed that “all Indian people” wanted the old one restored.
Yet, for those of us with deep roots in Native communities, this is not about honour or heritage — it is a deeply troubling attempt to deny history and silence Indigenous voices.
• Trump tells Washington NFL team to revert to ‘Redskins’ name
“Redskins” was never just a slur; it was a bounty term. In the 18th century, when the US was still using British pounds as currency, £50 was offered for the scalp of every male Penobscot, and £25 for those of women and children. These “red skins” were not metaphorical. They were literal receipts — bloody evidence in a state-sanctioned campaign that commoditised Indigenous lives and incentivised murder.
A decision by the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has since affirmed that “Redskins” is a slur — derogatory, insulting and unacceptable. In 2014, the board ruled that the team’s name was “disparaging to Native Americans”. The term has also been formally labelled “taboo” by the American Heritage Dictionary.
Trump is using this latest performative outrage as a distraction. Ironically, he has argued himself that the US president shouldn’t be involved in this debate. In 2013, when Barack Obama suggested he would consider changing the team’s name — at the time still called the Redskins — if he owned them, Trump said: “Presidents should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name — our country has far bigger problems!”
The entire Miga campaign is unsettling. When Trump refers to “all Indian people”, he uses an outdated term rooted in colonial error. “Indian” is a misnomer dating back to Christopher Columbus’s navigational mistake. While some Native people still use it, many prefer “Indigenous”, “Native”, or the names of our specific tribal nations.
Trump is showing little respect for people of colour. His latest move only gives his supporters another “enemy” to rail against, probably to distract the nation from its outrage over his refusal to disclose the Jeffrey Epstein files.
As a result, he is ignoring the Native voices and organisations that fought for decades to retire the team’s name. He is converting nostalgia into a weapon.
Many of us in the Native community may not have found the name offensive in the past — not because it wasn’t but because we had become desensitised. That is how these symbols do their damage: quietly, by reducing living cultures to logos.
Words matter — especially when they carry the weight of genocide. Defending “Redskins” as tradition is not just tone-deaf; it is dangerous. It signals that Native pain is still subject to debate, and that our dignity is disposable.
We are not your mascot. And we refuse to go backwards.
Troy Littledeer is a Keetoowah Cherokee journalist and former media director for the United Keetoowah Band
