MLB Cleveland Guardians.

Or to keep this non-political, per the board rules, maybe just bigoty?

Your first and third paragraphs are great.  

Genocide has a very specific meaning and is basically synonymous with eradication.  I do not believe that the Federal Government ever intended to complete eradicate all Native Americans nor an entire tribe, especially a peaceful tribe.  There were diasporas, but they were usually agreed to.  The Cherokees and Seminoles are notable examples.  However, the Cherokee was not forcefully removed by the Federal Government.  They were primarily removed by the Georgian government under threat of secession (by both Georgia and South Carolina), if the Federal Government opposed the State of Georgia.  And the woefully underfunded Federal Government chose not to oppose the removal.  Just focusing on the Five Civilized Nations, because almost everyone else does, members of the Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek could choose to remain on land of their choosing, if they agreed to be bound by all Federal and relevant state laws.  And several members of each nation chose to remain, several becoming prosperous planters and plantation-owners.

The Irish and generally synonymous Celtics were often subject to mass killings, lynchings and intimidation and systematic and intentional expulsion by various individuals associated with the Federal government and governments of the several states.  And the Irish were also systematically driven out of several places and were often targets of the "white supremacist" groups of the 19th century and early 20th century.  And that is on top of the fact that the Irish's own land was systematically stolen out from under them and then England tried to Black '47 them all to death thereafter.

Cowboys has a very long and differing usage.  It is not really worth going down that black hole.

Cleveland was called the Indians as a celebration of the fact that Cleveland was the first team to play a professional Native American.  In reflecting upon this, I still believe that the nickname "Indian" is not in and of itself offensive.  However, the marketing and mascot related to the nickname is almost invariably problematic and almost cannot help but be offensive.  So, it is probably better for everyone that the nickname be changed.  Plus, Guardians is a much better name than Indians.  I approve.  I disagree of several of the hot takes on both sides, though.

The Federal Government's official position beginning with Carter and extending into the Trump administration (I am not sure that Biden has come out with an official position, but it would be shocking, if he deviated with the Obama position) is that the Federal Government has never been guilty of genocide as that term is defined above and the United Nations has never found that the United States Federal Government has done anything that constitutes "genocide."

Define started or elevated in your second-to-final paragraph.  I believe that the Federal Government got involved in wars with the tribes.  But they were almost invariably in response to an attack or a violation of a treaty.  There may have been instances where that was not the case but none immediately come to mind.

If Native Americans suffered genocide in the United States of America, then what the Irish suffered in the United Kingdom of England and Ireland was certainly genocide.  It could be argued that what happened to the Irish was even more pernicious and evil, because Native American tribes were not citizens (until 1924), whereas the Irish in the United Kingdom of England and Ireland were citizens.  That is also why it would be argued that what happened to the Irish and Italians in the United States of America was more pernicious and evil, because it occurred to citizens of the United States of America.

I mean more than 10,000 Italian-Americans were forced from their homes during World War II with more than 3,000 winding up in internment camps, some of those in the same camps that were primarily populated by Japanese-Americans.  Giuseppe and Rosalia DiMaggio (Joseph "Joe" DiMaggio's parents) had their boat confiscated and were barred from travelling more than five miles from their house.  They were specifically not allowed to travel to the San Francisco Bay.  Giuseppe could not even go to Joe's restaurant near Fishermen Wharf.  This was jarring, because Joe DiMaggio had just hit safely in 56 straight games, earned the AL MVP and a World Series Championship ring and was named Associated Press Athlete of the Year in the nine months before. 

The largest mass-lynching in American history was of Italian-Americans in Louisiana in 1891, which led to the creation of Columbus Day.  There are Supreme Court cases about Louisiana intentionally excluding Italians, which were upheld by the United States Supreme Court.

On August 11, 1921, Irish-American James Edwin Coyle was shot in the head and killed on the porch of St. Paul's in Birmingham, Alabama by E.R. Stephenson, a Southern Methodist minister.  Coyle had married Stephenson's daughter to Pedro Gussman, a Puerto-Rican.  There were several witnesses.  Hugo Lafayette Black led the defense of Stephenson.  After a member of the prosecution indicated that Gussman was of "proud Castilian descent," the Black team indicated in open court that Gussman had "descended a long way."  Black and his team got Stephenson acquitted.  Black went on to be a Senator from 1926-1937.  In 1935, he and Tom Connally of Texas once filibustered an anti-lynching law.  After successfully filibustering the legislation, he and Connally grinned and shook hands.  Nevertheless, FDR put him on the bench in 1937.  And Black went on to serve on the Court for 34 years, writing such enlightening opinions like Korematsu v. United States.

And Stephenson shooting and killing Coyle was exactly 100 years and two days ago.

I am going to stop before I fall too deep into this rabbit hole, but this topic triggers me.  

"Move on" is right! Guardians is the new name. Move on.

But seriously, what is wrong with kneeling for the anthem? I've heard folks complain that it is disrespectful to the troops. That is hilarious! The flag belongs to the troops? No, it represents you and me because we are all America, not just the troops. Those Olympic athletes who got their medals were draped in the flag. They aren't troops.  Every school has a flag. They aren't troops. 

I think you're very confused about America. We've never really been united, except when faced with the terrible need such as after Pearl Harbor was bombed or on Sept. 11th. Otherwise, we are communities of people who are all fighting to get respect and a better way of life. We've been divided by race, by religion, by ethnicity, by wealth, by sports teams. If you think we haven't been divided, then you're a member of the "right" race, religion, and ethnicity who has at least a moderate income. Take a closer look around you.

I agree with paragraphs 1. 

I haven spoken to active duty military and to special forces in Afghanistan about kneeling during the anthem.  And both said that it was wildly offensive and disrespectful.  And nothing about that is hilarious.

Kneeling outside of the anthem, like what the USWNT did at the Olympics, that is a more proper time to kneel.

This whole thing only works, if our active duty military are adequately supported.  If people disrespect the anthem and flag and it destroys the morale of active duty military, this whole thing collapses upon itself and an Old World vacuum will be created that will have to be filled by someone.

I don't understand your last two sentences.  I would hazard to guess that we disagree.

Yes, the Irish have only experienced a few decades of trouble. To quote you, "That is hilarious!" The point is several-fold and nuanced. One point, which seems completely lost upon you, is that the Irish were dumped upon for centuries, subjected to what easily falls into your defined term of "genocide" but generally get fingered as being at fault somehow and someway for what happened to Native Americans.



I am half-Polish, which systematically had their country stolen out from under them over a period of 155 years. And had to endure the Kulturkampf. And had to put up with the Prime Minister of Germany making speeches about the "Polish Question." And had to put up with a German government that had written plans to ethnically cleanse 3 million Polish people during World War I. And then the Polish people were the second-largest group of people killed during the Holocaust. And the Polish immigrants, who were able to get out came to a country populated by a bunch of people who are largely German, who used a bunch of wildly-offensive terms and jokes, which are somehow still ok to tell. And what happened to the Native Americans is all of the fault of the Polish-Americans as well for some reason that can neither be defined nor explained.

You are citing the 1890 census numbers.  In 1890, Native Americans living off of reservations were only counted as Native American, if they were 100% Native American.  As of the 2010 Census, there are 5,220,579 Native Americans in the United States of America.  And that is probably low, because there are a lot of people, who have Native American DNA, who do not know it.

The rest of it is a lot of guesswork, which often contradicts one another.

I have seen some estimates that there were only 8 million Native Americans in all of the Americas in 1491.  18 million seems very high.  10 million is probably a maximum for all lands North of what is today Mexico organized into about 600 tribes.  In any instance, by 1650, there were only about 6 million Native Americans in all of the Americas.  The introduction of smallpox, typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, mumps, and whooping cough decimated the Native American population.

1,000 tribes completely wiped out?  There are 574 Federally-recognized tribes in the United States of America and there are an additional 200+ tribes (estimated to be about 245), which are not Federally-recognized.  There may, in fact, now be more tribes and more Native Americans living in the United States than there were back in 1491.  

As for other tribes, the Celts/Gauls had colonized most of Europe, including England beginning with the middle to late third millennium BC.  And that had all been accomplished by about 275 BC.  And the Celts/Gauls were almost completely wiped out by 117 AD, almost exclusively limited to Ireland and Scotland.

The City of Carthage was founded in 814 BC and built an empire in the Western Mediterranean and expanded for approximately 600 years before being completely wiped off the map in 146 BC, the remnants being incorporated into the Roman Empire, which was taken over by the Vandals and then the Byzantines.  The Carthaginian culture was able to exist in Northwestern Africa under the Vandals and Byzantines but was completely annihilated by Hassan Ibn al Numan, who forced all of the people of Carthage to Tunis, using Carthage primarily as a resource center.

History is needlessly nuanced and messy.  What makes the Native Americans different than what happened in Ireland or Carthage?  Everyone gets their shot.  The residents of the original Chicago, Fort Dearborn, were all killed and Fort Dearborn was burned to the ground in 1812 by Chief Blackbird and the Potawatomi.

Some peoples and tribes are bound to succeed and others are bound to fail.  The weird survivors' guilt expressed by some is very weird.  History is history.  We cannot change it and here because of it.

Well, some Americans can understand that the flag of the United States of America represents something more than its military. And some people can’t.