The NFL should kick racist teams out of American football

My opponent provided a short list of such words so, to begin, let's look at the first example of amelioration: Yankee. Yankee is a corruption of Jan Kees (John Cheese) which was a derogatory term early English colonists of America used to describe their Dutch counterparts. Later, during the American Revolution, the ditty ‘Yankee Doodle' was considered extremely offensive by Americans when as it was sung by British soldiers to mock them: "doodle" then having a similar meaning to the word "retard" today, and "macaroni" being a reference to a foppish hat worn by dandies (effeminate men) at the time. (1) Since then, the old meanings have been largely forgotten and the term "Yankee" is used between most Americans without shame – and, thus far, it would seem my opponent and I agree. But here's where our opinions diverge: while one white American may refer to another as a "Yankee", just as African Americans often call other African Americans "niggers", it is not permissible for people outside those groups to use those terms, whether it may have become a pejorative (in the case of the former) or has been ameliorated (in the case of the latter). Consider this scenario, for example. As a visiting Englishman, I am sitting in a restaurant in America and I summon a passing server and address them as follows: "Now look here, Yankee, I want the finest wine available to humanity: I want it here and I want it now. What do you mean 'this is McDonald's'? God damn your insolence, I'll have a bottle of Mouton Rothschild soixante-dix-neuf or I'll have your guts for garters…. bloody Yankee sommeliers, they haven't got the first idea…" That, I think you would agree, would offend most Americans and I'd even venture to suggest that such a discourse in an American restaurant might elicit some negative comments the other diners. The other examples my opponent listed follow a similar principle: it may be that gay men can refer to each other as ‘queers' without fear of causing offence but when I tried to start a debate on this site entitled "Queers Cannot be Counted upon to be Competent Combatants in a Crisis" I was widely accused of insulting gentlemen of a homosexual persuasion. Moving on, my opponent stated: "A more serious accusation is that of racism…is important to distinguish between the use of a term which, at some point in its centuries old existence was used in a derogatory manner, and the actual application of discrimination based upon race. " To answer this I consulted the American Indian Movement and this is what they have to say on the matter of racism in sport: "The American Indian community for 50 years has worked to banish images and names like Cleveland's chief wahoo, Washington redskins, Kansas City chiefs, Atlanta braves. We work to remind people of consciousness of the use of the symbols resemblance to other historic, racist images of the past. Chief wahoo offends Indian people the same way that little black sambo offended African Americans and the frito bandito offended the Hispanic community and should have offended all of us. It assaults the principle of justice. " (2) So, while I am happy to accept that the name Washington Redskins causes little or no offence outside American Indian communities, that does not mean it is not racist and I, therefore, reaffirm that the NFL should kick racist teams out of American football. Thank you. (1) Chapters 1 and 2, Made in America, Bill Bryson (2) . http://www.aimovement.org...