I woke up this morning and did my daily morning ritual of looking up the sports news from the day before. Bomani Jones, co-host of the Highly Questionable show on ESPN, angered many viewers yesterday with his choice of apparel.

Jones decided to wear a Cleveland Caucasians shirt during the airing of Highly Questionable. People were up in arms over this. Twitter went chaotic, speaking on how Bomani Jones was a racist and his poor lack of judgement wearing the shirt. 

Some argued that if a white man wore a shirt saying “Cleveland Negroes” then it would be lambasted all over the social media world. He’d be automatically labeled a “racist”. Correct? I believe so. But there is a major difference between Bomani Jones’ shirt and a “Cleveland Negroes” shirt.

According to Merriam Webster dictionary, Caucasian is “of, constituting, or characteristic of a race of humankind native to Europe, North Africa, and southwest Asia and classified according to physical features —used especially in referring to persons of European descent having usually light skin pigmentation”. It simply refers to a person of light skin color being of European descent (or of North African or southwest Asian descent). There’s no derogatory history behind the word “Caucasian”.

Now when you try to flip the script and say “What if…”  you have to look at the meaning of the words. Let’s be fair. Let’s look into the definition of negro. A negro is “a member of a race of humankind native to Africa and classified according to physical features (as dark skin pigmentation).” Same as Caucasian, right?

The word “negro” has many negative implications throughout American history. Just as the “F-word” is one of the most vulgar words in the English language is basically an acronym for Fornication Under The Crowned King.  Even though the word is more-or-less an acronym it is considered extremely offensive and vulgar.

Bomani Jones’ shirt is a parody on the actual name of the Cleveland baseball team, The Cleveland Indians. The Native American namesake or characteristics are a common sight in sports in the United States. There is the Washington Redskins, Chicago Blackhawks and numerous college teams that attribute their name to Native Americans. Granted, many collegiate teams have changed their nicknames but there are others who haven’t.

Let’s be honest, Bomani Jones was not wearing the shirt to show his fashion sense but his intentions were to rile the public. He knew A LOT of people would find the shirt offensive but his point was made. What’s the difference between wearing a Cleveland Indians shirt or a Cleveland Caucasians shirt? The number of people affected.

The Native American population is certainly not as large as the Caucasian population in the states. More noise can be made when something offends the majority rather than the minority. Jones’ shirt was no different than a Cleveland Blacks or Cleveland Arabs shirt. It raised the question of, “is this offensive?”

Personally, I believe naming a team after a ethnicity or race of people is wrong. Obviously, people would be upset if the shoes were on the other foot and their race or ethnicity was being mocked. Don’t you think the Native Americans feel the same way?