the misdirection isn't the name change itself, which is trivial in every sense of the word, it's the bullshit discussion around it. to continue focusing on it after the fact is the misdirection, keeping us from discussing substantive issues, like actual systemic, structural barriers to prosperity and equality of opportunity.
names don't hurt. how we respond is what can hurt, how we allow words to infect us. but we have brains that can rationalize that away, make us defiant and resilient against it. we're literally talking about the trivialities of 5 year olds when we talk so incessantly about names.
what really hurts is, for instance, decades of redlining and systemic bias in politics, economics, education, nutrition, medicine, and a myriad of other daily, real issues that affect the lives of millions of americans, and billions of people worldwide.
this discussion is bullshit because we are not talking about those things. it's a misdirection.
Plenty of people are talking about those things. It's not either or.
Names do hurt. Does blackface hurt? That's essentially what having a team called the Redskins is. It's important to talk about how mass media and the mainstream will accept openly racist symbols. In the case of Native Americans it's also important to talk about how they went through a barely recognized genocide and have been systematically discriminated against in a major way.
It's important to learn about it, but being completely obsessed about the issue and view everything from its perspective is counter-productive. It's really an American thing, because many European nations went through similar experiences multiple times.
