As the furor heats up over the racist team image of the Washington Redskins, this poster by the National Congress of American Indians blasted across Twitter on Thursday.

The poster with its own racist images of New York Jews, San Francisco Chinamen and, of course, the Cleveland Indians was an ad created for the NCAI by advertising firm Devito/verdi in 2001. Its simple message resonates even more today.

While many fans cling to the traditional images of their teams, others are starting to realize how disrespectful a name like “Redskins” actually is. And just because that name has been used for decades, doesn’t mean it’s any less offensive circa 2013.

Consider how absurd this whole concept is. European settlers invaded the Native Americans’ country, pretended to be friendly, agreed upon countless treaties and then reneged, and then proceeded to wipe almost all of them off the face of the continent.

Then we name sports teams after them, draw up racist images to be worn on uniforms and baseball caps, and then cling to those images well into the 21st century.

It’s little consolation that Native Americans have the right to run gambling casinos. We ruined their civilization, and now we treat them as mere mascots. This poster underscores the absurdity of it all. I think this has to change. What do you think, readers?

Image: Devito/verdi