Read on Twitter
some thoughts in a thread about the @EdmontonEsks name as someone whose traditional territory includes edmonton and who grew up going to games 
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yesterday the @EdmontonEsks said they plan to talk to Inuit communities about the name. the thing about community consultation is that institutions can always find individuals, elders, organizations who support the status quo. you'll never find consensus. https://www.ckom.com/2020/07/04/cfls-edmonton-eskimos-plan-to-talk-to-inuit-communities-about-team-name/
the president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami already spoke out about this quite clearly. settlers are always in the game of questioning our forms of leadership, to their own benefit. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/attention-edmonton-eskimos-inuit-are-not-mascots/article27512855/
Inuit who support the @EdmontonEsks name have told me that i can't speak out against it because i'm not Inuk. I obviously agree that this should be Inuit-lead but there are a few reasons why I feel personally invested in this:
1) i grew up being told by other nehiyawak that the slur eskimo came from our work askipiw, which means to eat something raw. it was always intended to be disparaging. we should own up to this.
2) edmonton is nehiyaw (among others) territory and this should obligate us to speak out against racial slurs because used by professional sports teams. this has no place on our territory, even if it's a word we in part created.
3) Native mascots and slurs negatively effect all Indigenous people because white people see us as a monolith. @NativeApprops breaks down the psychological effects this has on us really well here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/262196/978056-ep-3-native-mascots-really-still.
