Headline: "Stop Your Injuns"

Philthy: City of Brotherly Love Makes Offensive Name Worse, Much WorseReally, Philly? After the Philadelphia Phillies were clobbered by the Cleveland Indians yesterday, 14-2, the Philadelphia Daily News took to offensive puns today to sell copy.

The back page of today's Daily News read: "Gentlemen, Stop Your Injuns." It's unclear how this cleared the copy desk.

As the Cleveland baseball team has continued to incite the ire of those whose find their name and mascot, "Chief Wahoo," offensive, even racist, the Daily News has simply reached a new low.

Just as the pressure has increased on the Washington Redskins to change their derogatory name, this, perhaps, will give a boost to the effort to remove stereotypical, racist Native mascots, nicknames and logos from athletics.Comment:  This is an excellent example of why even the team name "Indians" is problematical. Each of these little "puns" and "jokes" contributes to the pervasive idea that Indians are something other than normal. Something to be opposed and stopped. I.e., savages, heathens, or killers.

Using the derogatory term "Injun" also contributes to this idea. Like "squaw" and "redskin," it sets up Indians as a class of inferior people. It implies they're all the same, uncivilized, and situated in the distant past.

For more on Indian mascots, see Nugent "Tomahawk Chops" Mascot Critics and Hundt: "Redskins" Is Indecent.