Raiders Playing Chiefs for Native American Heritage Month. Why?

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Recently two pieces of news regarding the Raiders had come out, concerning the month of November. For one, the Raiders were going to have a celebration event at the home game to be played on Nov. 15.

From the Raiders website, this would be a large-scale event, including broadcasting the game in Navajo, and on-field ceremony honoring Peter MacDonald, who was a Code-Talker during world war II and the Leader of the Navajo Nation.

An entire breakdown of all events scheduled can be found here:

http://www.raiders.com/news/article-1/Raiders-Celebrate-Native-American-Heritage/ab19127a-540b-4875-b2a8-7eb1546b62d5

Now for anyone who has visited the Raiders site, it is through no stretch of the imagination that the Raiders' fanbase does go well beyond normal boundaries.

The Raiders broadcast in different languages, to other countries and have fan bases in every continent, with the exception of Antarctica....haven't seen a penguin with a tattoo yet.

Then earlier this week a column circulated from Inside the Bay Area when a local contributing columnist wrote that the Raiders' choice of opponents was done in bad taste.

This article can be found here: http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/ci_13763248

Byron Williams, to his credit does have an interesting point. Why hold a celebration for Native American Heritage against a team that is considered derogatory and insensitive to the indigenous people of this land?

They could have just as easily had moved it back a week and held the event against the Bengals, one week later.

Looking at the situation from the team's point of view, the Raiders can look at it this way. The Raiders already have a history of setting forth an example regarding minority players and executives.

We had the first African-American Coach, we had the first Hispanic Coach, in Tom Flores, we had the first female executive in the NFL, with Amy Trask.

Why not make an example of Native American Day and beat up the team that doesn't recognize how offensive it is to others?

Maybe someone in Oakland did contemplate how useful it would be to play the Chiefs on Sunday.

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