Editorial: Ending slurs is a beginning, not an end, in conversation on Native Americans

After decades of resisting calls to change its team name, the Washington Redskins NFL franchise announced Monday it would join the ranks of organizations that have come to recognize the hurtful impact of some marketing built on Native American themes. It's a welcome advance. Yet, as fraught with emotion as it may be, it's but a small victory among the conversations we need to have regarding the quality of life for Native Americans.

For years, sporting organizations from top professional teams to clubs at colleges, universities and high schools - including many in our own suburbs - have been revisiting, revising and replacing Native American-sourced names and mascots once accepted by many people as quaintly harmless, but eventually shown to be patently offensive, degrading slurs. It has been Daily Herald policy since 2013 to avoid using the Washington team's name because of its clear racist overtones.

Such changes are constructive steps, to be sure. They help remove the cloak of acceptability that fosters stereotypes and bigotries many of us may not even recognize we have. They help us tidy up our language and, hopefully, interact with each other more respectfully. But let's not be too hasty to pat ourselves on the back for our emerging decency.

One may well ask in the wake of so many changes in social appearance, what in fact has happened to the quality of life for Native Americans? Has the removal of slurs, for example, led to increased attendance of Native Americans on the nation's college campuses? Is literacy among Native Americans better today than 20 years ago? What about the experience on reservations, where in spite of some isolated improvements, U.S. Census data shows incomes remain low while unemployment, drug use and poverty remain high?

Perhaps we cannot begin to seriously address questions like these until we rid our linguistic and visual landscape of disrespectful imagery that impedes our ability to confront them. That notion seems to seethe beneath the surface of an announcement last year from the American Indian Center of Chicago that it has severed ties with the Chicago Blackhawks NHL franchise. The statement insists that the elimination of harmful stereotypes is "necessary to sustain a safe, welcoming environment for members of our community as well as protecting our cultural identity and tradition." The Blackhawks organization, as recently as last week, issued a statement reaffirming the pride it takes in its name and vowing "to serve as stewards of our name and identity." It remains to be seen whether the two positions can be reconciled.

In Washington, the reconciliation was hastened by a threat from FedEx to pull out of an $8 million-a-year stadium-naming contract and the refusal of several top retailers to sell the football team's merchandise. So, the team realized, as have so many other organizations across the country, that the correct option was to make a change. But another, even more difficult stage of this conversation awaits. It is undeniably good that we stop insulting Native Americans. Now, what will we do to understand and help them?