The professional football team from Washington D.C. has a terrible problem that will not be going away until they undergo a name change.
There’s been plenty written on this subject recently, but if you’re interested I recommend Joe Flood’s piece at Buzzfeed a few weeks back, How the “Redskins” Debate Goes Over on an Actual Indian Reservation.
The issue of Native American representation in professional sports does not seem all that complicated. Redskins, as a moniker for an NFL team, is an offensive term. That’s that. And though not everyone cares about the issue, it is a pejorative that has been re-appropriated by the NFL. Whether or not the name carries sentiment and tradition for the the Washington Football team, it is in this day an offensive term. Whether or not there are other teams that have racial descriptors as team names, it is in this day an offensive term.
When we watch Peter Pan today, we are shocked to hear similar language and depictions of Native culture in our children’s movies. That was in 1953. And yet, when we hear it on ESPN in 2013, we seem innocuous to the reality of the word and its meaning. Redskin is a racial slur, and it is offensive-maybe not to everyone, but offensive nonetheless. No matter what the NFL or Dan Snyder would like people to believe, that offense is real.
When Dan Snyder declared that the title Redskin is not a label but a badge of honor, he fails to understand that he, as a white American who owns a football team of that name, does not determine how Native Americans hear national media, and feel in response to that media, about their own culture. If you want an objective discussion of the issue, the billionaire owner of the Washington Football team is not likely to be a valuable resource.
Sports culture in the US does not take this issue seriously. For all the show that the NFL and MLB and NCAA (among others) put into their political correctness on Native American representation, the team names, images, logos and mascots remain ever present on our televisions and radios and computers, with their trademarks, making millions of dollars for these organizations.
It is not difficult for audiences the distinguish desire to be politically correct from the desire to do the right thing.
The desire to be political correct results in a “national discussion” about who we are. Doing the right thing means making change.
If these organizations-athletic and media-were interested in doing the right thing regarding how we represent Native Americans in our sports culture, this could never happen:
