Anyone remember the "Texas Rangers"? (split from Washington Redskins)

[batmagadanleadoff]

Are the Texas Rangers next?



The Texas Rangers' team name must go



Excerpt:

As the Washington football team finally gives up its racist slur of a name, there is one major sports team that has avoided the spotlight and resisted meaningful engagement with the violent and racist implications of its name. To know the full history of the Texas Rangers is to understand that the team's name is not so far off from being called the Texas Klansmen.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/texas-rangers-team-name-must-go/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/texas-rangers-team-name-must-go/

[Ceetar]

probably third on the list. Cleveland is in the works and Atlanta has their back up, so lets get at it.

[Edgy MD]

Here's to Joan Payson picking a name that didn't really have any prior real-world meaning.

[kcmets]

With some clever facetweeting and twittbooking I'm sure some lemmings could be convinced that

the New York Metropolitans were evil mauraudering scumbags and the apple must be torn down.



Tear it down!

Tear it down!

[Ceetar]

sure, you can convince people of anything, it's basically Qanon's motto.



But it won't _actually_ be true.

[whippoorwill]

Are the Texas Rangers next? The Texas Rangers' team name must go Excerpt: As the Washington football team finally gives up its racist slur of a name, there is one major sports team that has avoided the spotlight and resisted meaningful engagement with the violent and racist implications of its name. To know the full history of the Texas Rangers is to understand that the team's name is not so far off from being called the Texas Klansmen. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/texas-rangers-team-name-must-go/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/texas-rangers-team-name-must-go/

What? I thought they were called that (the original Texas Rangers) because they had to cover large ranges of territory to fight crime in the wild Wild West

[Benjamin Grimm]

The complaint is that a large part of their mission was to clear the area of Native Americans.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I looked to see what the history of minor-league names in the Dallas Fort-Worth area is. There was a long-time team called the "Dallas Rangers", but that's probably not a likely substitute!



Further back, there were the "Dallas Eagles" and the "Fort Worth Cats".



Another name that might work, and would only involve changing a few letters, would be the "Texas Ranchers".

[Edgy MD]

The problem is that The Rangers are a still-active unit — pretty much the Texas State Bureau of Investigation, and I imagine many would argue that the actions against Native Americans are not a full or accurate representation of their legacy.



I mean, I imagine there is blood on the hands of all the groups invoked by team names (Mets excluded). Patriots do shitty things, which undermines the credibility of New England's football team. We've demonstrated that Padres can be assholes, Giants step on Englishmen and turn them to jelly, Mariners maliciously kill albitrosses, and Royals lock family members in towers and are particularly cruel to queens who can't produce heirs.



As silly as many of these are, we'd be silly to be less than fully thoughtful here.

[Ceetar]

With Washington and Cleveland and Atlanta And Kansas city and Chicago and.. and.. a lot of it's the roleplay as other people that drives a lot of the disgust with it. You're a mascot for our amusement, etc.



The Rangers are a little different. (And I don't know how much of this translates to the 'spin off' name in NY)



Instead of the race being the mascot/theme, it's the killing of them that's the theme. It's slightly more hidden than if they'd gone with like Texas Apache" or something.



But we're past that. The Rangers were not a glorious part of history, they're not something to be celebrated. You can't spin it anyother way. If 'Mets' were established for some racist reason, but now it's branded and marketed and described as being just 'the city' or whatever, I think that's fine. If the Pirates were named for some particularly horrible pirates and pirate actions, and then changed it completely to be a cartoonish modern day amalgam, I think that's be fine.



There are probably a whole bunch of other names, especially in college, that are due for a change. my middle school changed Gladiators, I don't know why, but I could see glorifying the battle of slaves for your amusement to not be the best mascot.



It's not an easy thing, but it's 2020, we can try to be a little more inclusive in general. It's just a name, change it to something that doesn't remind people of bad things.

[stevejrogers]

=Ceetar post_id=40496 time=1594835234 user_id=10]The Rangers are a little different. (And I don't know how much of this translates to the 'spin off' name in NY)

[Ceetar]

yes, I know, it was as play on words of the real thing, but the joke isn't a joke without the racist original. I don't know if that's enough to defuse it. If Dae-sung Koo founded an NHL team, it wouldn't be okay to call them the Koo Klux Klan.