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Washington, D.C.’s NFL team is named with a racial slur against Native Americans: you know, the one from the old John Wayne westerns where people say things like “the only good Injun is a dead Injun.” The name has long been controversial, but the team and fans alike have resisted changing it, and even the large African-American fan base has been unmoved by such questions as “how would you like it if they were called the Washington Sambos?”
However, there are signs that the attitude is changing. An insightful piece in yesterday’s Washington Post by local affairs columnist Courtland Milloy explains that the obstinacy is largely because the team’s rise to NFL prominence after it was finally integrated in the early 1960s produced a sense of pride, and it has been hard to disassociate the name from that pride. But as Milloy also points out, the team’s prestige has gone far downhill, so that one basis for resistance to changing the name is fading.
Thus in his recent State of the District address, the mayor pointedly avoided using the word, simply speaking of “our football team,” even though he has backed off any suggestion of requiring a name change as a condition for the team to move back into the District from a Maryland suburb. And WaPo itself is starting to get on board. As its “Ombudsman” (don’t get me started on the inaccuracy of using that term for him) now summarizes, two columnists besides Milloy (a maverick) have now endorsed a name change. An editorial can’t be far behind.
This flurry of reformist sentiment coincides with a symposium held two days ago at Washington’s National Museum of the American Indian, where the issue of racial stereotypes as sports mascots was discussed by panelists like longtime Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee activist Suzan Shown Harjo, who was involved in a 1990s failed lawsuit precisely against the Washington team. The point was made that the best chance of forcing a name change might well be a new lawsuit that is in the works against the team’s trademark (the failure of the last one was due to a technicality).
You also have to wonder if the symbolism of a racist name for the team representing the capital city of a nation with an African-American chief executive might not be getting noticed in the corridors of power. We shall see, but my prediction is that the change will happen, and at a date not too far off.
Hold forth, people, but be forewarned: any comment that spells out the R-word will be flagged.
39 Comments
I think it’s about time for a change. No, I got that wrong.
I think it’s long past time for a change. But since the team is not in the news and hasn’t been for quite a while – I agree that this may be the best time. Change it now and no one will notice.
Although I do have another comment. In these years of being politically correct – don’t go overboard.
Here in Montana, a local high school team known as the “Chiefs” was attacked by the PC crowd and told they needed to change their name due to this same reason. One problem. The team was entirely made up of ………Native American kids from the Browning Indian Reservation. They had had a long series of discussions around the use of the name and its ramifications. They held a series of school-wide votes on the issue. This was their decision. The girls teams were known as the “Maidens” BTW. Also their choice.
But I agree that the team in DC does need to change their name. Not the same thing at all by a looooooong shot.
Thanks for the article. Rec’d.
New name: the Washington Lobbyists.
That’s a really good story, lw; thanks for it.
But I point out that what you call “the PC crowd” (and the “PC” concept is something that was promoted by the Heritage Foundation several years ago in an effort to make racist and sexist speech seem respectable) initiated a fruitful discussion. It probably helped the Native American kids increase their sense of their own worth.
LOL
Recommended.
It ashamed that Wikipedia, while acknowledging that there is controversy, does not spell it out, leaving a very cleaned up impression.
So let me remind people why the term is so offensive:
When clearing an area of Native Americans, bounties were paid for India scalps (before the French & Indian War):
The Genocidal maniacs killing the Indians took to killing women with long hair, and cutting the hair in half, to try to get paid twice for one Murder;
The English Military caught on to the trick, and issued a ruling:
They would no longer pay the bounty for just hair:
They would only pay if attached to the hair was a piece of Red Skin.
Jeez. Like “American Indian” is any more accurate. At least the Canadians try a little harder with “First Nations.”
Let’s see if I can name just a few of the ethnic slurs that paint my own ancestry: Frogs, Limeys, Squareheads, Redcoats, traitors, papists, WASPs, n-word and just a dash of nicklenose.
Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. Redskin. Got a bit of Mickimac on the old man’s side. Guess you’ll have to flag me, oh creature of political correctness.
Let’s see. What other sports teams have oh-so-offensive names? Indians, Braves, Cowboys(if you choose to look at it that way), Saints, Vikings, Cavaliers(why are there no Roundheads–it’s not FAIR!), Giants(no Pygmies, that’s not fair, either), Packers(how DARE they exploit the working class!), Steelers(same thing), Avalanche(how can someone name a sports team after a horrific natural disaster?–oh, I saw the objections in Denver), which leads me to Hurricanes and Cyclones and Tornadoes.
And then those Raiders and Pirates. Tsk! Tsk! What a horrible example for our children!
Throw the PETA people in, and you get criticism for all of the animal mascots.
And there is the rub: They’re frickin’ MASCOTS! Totems! You know, things that people think are cool!
Get over it. I have far bigger fish to fry, such as the standard of living of me and mine. Whining about sports teams mascots is petty at best and distracting from far more important things at worst.
This is not an important issue. At all. IMO. Notice there is no “H” in there.
I’m a squarehead too, but not many people know what that means.
I did not know that history; thanks, normanb.
And as to @ 7, I am one of those who don’t know what it means. If you are still around this morning enlighten me.
You are indeed flagged, as I promised (and as to “political correctness,” see @ 2). I see you are at least faux sensitive enough to use the term “n-word.” Is that only because there are many more African-Americans?
It IS an important issue. What you are not getting, OB, is that “Native Americans” (and I don’t disagree that the Canadians have better terminology) have been subjected to genocide, and still live in inferior conditions for the most part, at the hands of the very people who want to appropriate their symbols for self-gratification. That is why dedicated people like Suzan Harjo work so hard to stop the pain that they feel as a result of the insult. The French, English, etc., whom you are trying to say are comparable cases are not so at all.
A squarehead is a Norwegian. It may have been derogatory at one time, but it is now probably used mainly by Norwegians and Norwegian Americans, a slight touch or ethnocentric pride generally accompanies its use.
The biggest PC scolds of all are the people who start throwing around the term “politically correct” any time somebody objects to a label. They’re as much the thought police as the people they attack.
You forgot the Fighting Irish. My sympathies, I agree that folks need to lighten up.
It would be nice if no one took offense at words that have long lost their original meaning. (In academia world, I think this is called “the etymological mistake.”) It seems the only ways we can be offended is either to concede to the aggrieved ethnicity the right to determine what is offensive, or to be taught a history lesson: “Ah hem, listen up so you’ll be properly offended: the word “redskin” is offensive because its origin is in the early colonial practice of giving bounties only for Native American scalps that had red skin attached. Now if I hadn’t been here to teach you that, you wouldn’t have any idea why the word is offensive, unless like me you thought early Americans were insulting Indians by saying their skin was red, which, giving that a little thought (the English insulting _others_ for red skin?), seems very unlikely.”
On the other hand, who cares? Merchandising rules, and the formerly known as the Redskins should make a killing. Hopefully something more gripping than ‘the Wizards’, the last change a local team made to its name.
You ignored the warning and are therefore flagged. And the R-word is offensive today for reasons that go beyond the original impetus you cite: the Indian-hating Western movies, for starters.
Ask the cop on the corner, ask the cop on the rooftop, ask the cop in the woodpile, ask the cop that’s knocking on your back door…
[knock knock]
Go ahead, ask him!
Ok, er… Mister policeman, what makes America great?
It’s candied apples
and ponies with dapples,
that you can ride all day.
It’s girls with pimples
and cripples with dimples,
that just won’t go away.
It’s spics and whops
and niggers and kikes
with noses as long as your arm.
It’s mics and chinks
and gooks and geeks,
and honkies…
[rubber bulb type squeaking bicycle horn]
…that never even left the farm!
That’s what makes America great. And don’t forget…
Abraham Lincoln didn’t die in vain…He died in Washington DC! Firesign Theatre – How Can You Be Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-4YF7S7rHo
Or Temporarily Humboldt County.
http://firezine.net/faq/fst-humboldt.html
I played a Firesign Theatre recording – not this one – for a young(er than me) Native American highly educated and hip person: She was offended at the intentionally offensive jokes about mistreatment of Indians. I loved Firesign back when, but I really couldn’t speak to defend them: It did sound elitist, and a little Racist.
It was all the more uncomfortable for me, because, before playing the recording, I mentioned that I was once in a movie with Peter Bergman, genius of Firesign Theatre. I brag about my association with him, and he says something anti-Indian.
Their whole thing was major sarcastic jab at the simplistic and superficial “left” of the time. I still enjoy at as the the left has merely become even more simplistic and superficial. As well as self-righteous and overbearing.
Flagging the ‘R-word’ is mind-boggling, but then…it’s your post.
In my opinion, you fail to make an adequate case for not only ‘this Team’s'(/s) name change, but for all the other pro teams as well. Every time this issue comes up, someone brings up one of the high school (like in AZ) whose First American students don’t give a flap about it. To that point, let me remind you of the insane colonization FA’s are still under, especially on reservation schools.
Kids in my state have had to sit through history classes about the barbaric violence perpetrated on ‘innocent settlers’ forever, and it causes pain *and* cognitive dissonance for many Indian kids (and yes, many NA/FA do use the generic term. Mr. wd and I taught mini-classes in black and NA history to third and fourth-graders here to neutralize some of it.
But to the same point, it *may have been* Chris Ayers’ who directed ‘Smoke Signals‘ who said that it was soooo depressing to see Native kids raised on white teevee watching cowboys and Indians movies…and rooting for the cowboys.
I’d collected some tabs and links earlier to post here, but my browser crashed and I lost them all. There was one about the fact that all tribes wanted to jettison stereo-typing Indian mascots, songs (the Braves’ chop) and names. Part of the reasoning is that tribes are not generic; most tribes have identifiable cultural/religious dress and don’t liked being lumped into one image/name, etc.; nor do they like being seen as idiots (see Chief Wahoo!) or blood-thirsty killers (the chop).
There have been a number of teams who changed their names, and I’m all for it. If you think it’s a non-issue, it may be because you weren’t the victims of genocide, sociocide, or you aren’t the progeny of people brought here in chains. Nor do you yet understand why so many Occupiers abjured the term, and favored ‘Decolonize ___’
Thanks for the link, cmauk; it’s a treasure. I saw Firesign do a live Halloween show once, when I was visiting friends in LA sometime in the mid-1980s; they were a riot.
It occurs to me that since the contributors to this thread are expert in things Indian, you know about Coyote stories, right? You might check out this little thing I wrote back in those times.
“Flagging the ‘R-word’ is mind-boggling.”
Would you say that if it was flagging the N-word?
That said, thank you for the best comment to this point, wd. In the post that appears somewhere up above I of course am attempting to report some history in a context where people feel strongly about the subject, not make a case for the team changing its name. You certainly add material to that case.
I reckon I would, E.F. Beall, if we were just involved in a discussion. I’d need to think further if someone called someone that name, though (can’t even imagine it happening here). In general, I think the free expression of ideas and opinions isn’t serve by any form of censorship, so I’ve only flagged one comment in the years I’ve been here, and only deleted one comment on one of my posts (though I considered others that sincerely mucked up comment threads for no reason other than to call me out as a racist, a homophone, holocaust denier, etc.) In general, I’d rather let weird comments stand for others to see and/or respond to.
Context is everything in terms of words to me. For instance, a Treble Army video BAR keeps on its right edge uses all sorts of racial stereotypical imagery, but…they are all black, so…the context is different than if Rush Limbaugh uses it. Imo, of course. I almost brought my post on Occupying V. Decolonizing, but I reckon most people wouldn’t give much of a fig about seeing from another angle if they hadn’t read it when I published it.
The other thing I’d say is that it’s long been my belief that third-world and Indigenous women are the humans who may be able to lead us out of this hell we’re experiencing in every sector, and my second job is to try to get folks here to see that ‘we’ are increasingly ‘they’. So I try to show what’s up globally with what the Indigenous know, and why we should respect the knowledge they’ve gleaned over the centuries as to capitalism, neoliberalism, green-washing the economy, GMOs, etc. And.names.matter.
Thanks, EF Beall.
Oh, and I do hope you clicked into the Smoke Signals video of ‘John Wayne’s Teeth’. The very best recent trend in film is First American films: written, produced, directed, and acted. I love it!!!
Thanks, everyone; I’ve got to go now to write a new diary because WaPo published a particularly enraging article today. I agree with wd that women are the vanguard (I think of Malala first, and then the anti-rape protests in India and Egypt). As for the video, I’ll get to it, but speaking of teeth I remember that in some old western there was a cattle drive where an Indian participant wins the cook’s false teeth in a poker game. Later on the trail the cook is driving the chuck wagon with the Indian riding shotgun, and the cook begs to get his teeth back to keep the trail dust out of his mouth, whereupon the Indian responds: “keep mouth shut; dust not get in.”
(link not operating)
With all diminishing respect, E.F.Beall, I take offense that not only did you not even begin to acknowledge my last considered responses, you skittered off to post on something ‘so enraging at WaPo’. I wouldn’t have been as offended had you said you thought my position was bullshit, or any manner of characterization.
Now, aided by one of your recent posts on which there was some kerfuffle regarding race, I came back to weigh in, only to discover you saying that there’s a lot of racism at this site (speaking to another, and linking to some diary) but with no evidence or explanation. Boy, howdy, did I leave the scene. And I may avoid your posts in the future. I am singularly disappointed that I wasted my time.
{{{G}}}
OK, I’m back. In response to normanb @ 23, the link @ 18 is fixed.
In response to wd @ 24, I guess she won’t be reading this thread any more or the new post, since she is so disappointed in me, but I’ll leave it to others to judge whether or not the latter was urgent enough for me to break away from here for a time. I thought I did respond to at least part of her previous comment, but I guess that was not enough in her mind.
In response to cmauk @ 25: Dude, I’m up on some of the new internet speak, but not “{{{G}}}”; explanation, please?
Big Grin
“…but I’ll leave it to others to judge whether or not the latter was urgent enough for me to break away from here for a time.”
You never indicated you’d be back, just that you were off to another post.
And no, it wasn’t, imo. It wasn’t as though it were time sensitive, so it’s hard not to imagine that you just didn’t want to engage in that line of thought, or you would have said:’ Be Back in an Hour’, or whatever. I sincerely hoped you’d think about a wider angle on those words you call by letters was all.
First, I’m very glad that you’re back, because I think you have been the most penetrating commenter in this thread.
Second, I wasn’t sure I would be back, because I didn’t know how long the other post would take and there are other things I have to do this evening eventually.
Third, I’m a scholar, who is relatively new both to FDL and to blogging generally. Please forgive me if I don’t have all the etiquette down just yet; I will get there.
Fourth, it’s possible I mistook my anger at WaPo for urgency; you’re probably right that it wasn’t time sensitive.
That said, let me get back to your comment @ 20. As to censorship, maybe it is extreme to flag for the R-word, but I’m trying to enhance any budding consciousness at FDL that IT IS JUST AS OFFENSIVE as the N-word. And I agree with you that use of the latter is a matter of context; if black people want to bandy it about in a joking sort of way, it’s not for me to chastise them. As I said, I agree that 3rd world women have the best consciousness in movement for change.
And the Smoke Signals video is indeed choice.
My best to you in any case,
EFB
Glad to penetrate, lol.
My larger point about the terms is that we *can* use them…to *discuss* them, imo, and flagging tends to *inhibit* discussions to the point that everyone walks around on eggshells afraid of real debate. Not quite sure about the equal valuations of the two terms (and the Devil makes we want to type them out), but I’m neither red nor black, though my children are. My guess is that neither of them would agree with you, but two is a poor sampling.
You didn’t address my question as to seeing racism at this site, though, and as I said earlier, some folks seem to get pretty goosey at anything that can be labelled so.
Thanks for the response, and I know you’ll learn the etiquette, if indeed there is one.
I screw it up all the time, esp. when I’m in a hurry…which is always.
I had a counselor that would say “You can be right or you can be real.”
We cannot get to the point of honest discussion without first being real.
A Bicycle.
Ah, so; Third Student was Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, as I once was.
Nice.
My own children don’t agree with me about much of anything (although my grandchildren might).
My suspicion of racism (and it is a suspicion, not a claim of proof) is based on several comments that assume Ray Lewis is guilty of murder, or that mock his religious references, on tbogg’s blog on the Super Bowl last weekend. Make of that what you will.
And I appreciate the emoticons.
Yes that sounds very Zen to me (from what I remember from looking at it in the 1960s).
Someone also once said, “a poem is not to mean but to be.”
Was not aware. I came to ZEN by way of Charlotte Joko Beck. The Ordinary Mind school of ZEN.
Ay yi yi; I had to ask, lo. I tried to read a few comments, but TBoww is a bridge too far for me, so I’ll have to take your word for it. Mainly I know him from his participation at anti-drone-assassination posts making sort of other commenters whose moral sensibilities are deeply offended.
The emoticons made themselves, really, from a semi-colon (I think) and a close parenthesis. Usually I use and ‘o’ for a nose, but had been getting teased about it lately.
Interesting. Nichiren Shoshu isn’t intellectual, just chanting of the ‘mystical devotion to the laws of cause and effect’ phrase, plus the chanting of long sutras twice a day. Helped order and ground my life for a few years.
Heh. We were taught that Sharihotzu, the wisest (read ‘intellectual’) disciple was the last to attain enlightenment. ;o)
I’m amazed that this thread is still going this morning (my newer diary only has 8 comments other than mine so far), at least with you, wd. However, if I could get back to the actual subject today’s WaPo is the one that has letters to the editor on the name change. I can’t get past the paywall to get the on-line link, but from the print edition three letters support the name change for good reasons, one suggests the “Washington Spies” (cf. TarheelDem @ 2 above), and one opposes the name change for the usual reasons.
I have some choice land on the east side of Staten Island to sell to anyone who believes the Post does not pick and choose which letters to publish. The selection today is further evidence that the paper is leaning toward supporting the change.
(It’s neither here nor there, but local columnist John Kelly also has a pretty good sendup of Downton Abbey.)