In July 1965, my father composed and mailed a letter (a letter was this thing you wrote longhand, or at a typewriter, which was this thing ... oh, never mind) to Edward Bennett Williams, who at the time was acting president of the football team for which dad owned season tickets, the Washington Redskins. Dad wanted to bring to the franchise's attention what he felt was a slight to its black ticket-holders.Dad and other black ticket-holders were offended by the inclusion of "Dixie" in the Redskins band's game-day repertoire, as well as the flying of the Confederate flag in the stands.
"Let's make the Negro patron feel really welcome in 1965 and not accept his $6.00 admission fee and then publicly insult him," Dad wrote.
Williams replied later that month: "I agree with your suggestion and will see that it is carried out."
What was my father's favorite team hasn't insulted that significant part of its fanbase since, but it continues to do so to a significant part of our country's heritage by holding onto its nickname, a slur on American Indians.
The Supreme Court on Monday let the club off the hook again by citing a technicality in refusing to hear the appeal of a long-running lawsuit filed by a group of American Indians who've called the nickname Redskins offensive and therefore in violation of trademark law.
I don't know what it will take for the club I grew up rooting for to own up to the objectionable nature of its nickname as wisely as it did vestiges of America's sad history of enslaving humans, which it long incorporated into its show. But I do think it would help if Sam Bradford -- the reigning Heisman Trophy winning Oklahoma quarterback who declared for the NFL Draft last month after being felled again by injury -- refused selection by Washington, which likely will spend a high first-round pick on a quarterback given that its incumbant, Jason Campbell, is unsigned for 2010. Bradford relayed to me through his athletic department's spokesman that he isn't interested at this time in addressing this issue despite having become a celebrity role model in the Cherokee Nation. His father Kent, whose great-grandmother, Susie Walkingstick, was Cherokee, told me Sam will speak for himself.
Sam should, of course. He ought not to be forced to take on entire struggle that virtually no athletes before him have embraced, most conspicuously football players of color who predominate the league. That's what happens when your career span averages just 3 years. You don't see time to dedicate your attention span to much beyond the game.
But I recall the story of how black AFL All-Stars reacted to Jim Crow accommodations and eateries at the 1965 AFL All-Star Game in New Orleans. They boycotted the game. Their white All-Stars joined them. And the game was relocated to Houston. It was believed to be the first time an entire city was boycotted by a pro sporting event.
Best anyone who should know knows, none of the few American Indians (that is the preferred phraseology of Russell Means, the Lakota founder of the American Indian Movement) who've played in the NFL ever suited up for Washington and, thus, faced this issue so squarely. Bradford is believed to be only the second American Indian to quarterback a major college team. Sonny Sixkiller is considered the first at the University of Washington in the early '70s.
The Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation, the second largest Indian tribe in the country, did not respond this week to the latest setback in the effort to erase the most infamous American Indian sports mascot name. But it has made its stance on this matter very clear in the past. This is what Cherokee chief Chad Smith told Fanua Borodzicz at The Poynter Institute, media's preeminent training center, in 2003:
"Portraying Native American people as mascots relegates us to second-class citizenship. Mascots are for entertainment. They are fun. They are objects of ridicule for the opposition. And they are told to leave the field of play when the main event, the game, begins. No one would tolerate such treatment of African-Americans or Hispanics. Those ethnic groups are not subjected to the 'honor' of being mascots. Even here in Oklahoma, where Native Americans make up the largest minority group in the state, we have mascots that sport war paint and are called the Redskins.The Web site American Indian Sports Teams Mascots has a growing list of upwards of 200 teams that, over the years, have dropped offending nicknames in favor of something else. And guess what? Those teams have continued to attract their old fans, gain new ones and succeed. Who remembers now that the Syracuse Orange were nicknamed after an American Indian until the university's American Indian student organization protested in 1978 and Onondagan Chief Oren Lyons, a '58 alumnus and former Syracuse lacrosse star, told the campus that the mascot was derogatory?
"The American Heritage Dictionary definition of 'redskin' is the same as the definition for 'the n-word,' which newspapers avoid printing and broadcasters avoid saying. Yet those same broadcasters and writers will use the term 'redskin' without a second thought. The slap in the face is just as real, but verbally assaulting Indians, as opposed to other ethnic groups, is apparently not taboo in the media. Indian mascots instill into mainstream society stereotypical, offensive, and factually incorrect notions of what Native Americans were and are."
Who recalls that before my father wrote to Edward Bennett Williams that the team's fight song not only included the refrain "fight for old Dixie," but also stanzas encouraging the team to "scalp" the opponent and written in stereotypical broken American Indian English like "we want heap more?"
The team dumped all of that, yet its popularity only continued to grow. It could do the same with the nickname now and not suffer any ill commercial effects, not that such a thing should be a concern when talking about disparaging an entire people.
This may be what some people call doing the politically correct thing. But what it was called when Edward Bennett Williams did it nearly half a century ago was, quite simply, the right thing.
Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Tell me again ......where was the first " REDSKIN TRIBE LOCATED?!!! "
Hail 2 the WASHINGTON REDSKINS
dont you mean first native american tribe
People need to find better ways to occupy their time. What alcoholism and suicide rates on reservation lands? Why don't you spend your time doing something about that instead of worrying about what a football team is named.
Not this junk again!
I agree, I am soooo tired of hearing the same old ya ya ya ya. Stop whining & grow up. Is there nothing else you can find to wite about? How about the GAME of football
Yeah, they tried this crap with FSU, also. However, FSU enjoys a fantastic relationship with the Seminole Tribe, and they went on record as being proud to have FSU use their tribal name.
I agree! I don't hear the cry to change the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland native Americans.
I would be willing to listen if it didnt come from such an intellectually dishonest source..He cares bout free speech then doesnt..he cares about old white guys playing at super bowl but doesnt care about old black women...and so on and so and why isnt he complaining about Notre Dame Fighting Irish? Hell,Im italian and I gotta put up with Chef Boyardee
go away blackistone, cant find anything important to write about!!
Its true, would the Los Angeles N**gers or the New York Kikes be tolerated?
Where he's wrong though is feeling he has the right to force Sam Bradford into speaking up or delivering an ultimatum.
Bradford has his own voice and is free to use it or keep it mum.
I talked about this today with my 19 year old niece who is a very intelligent, liberal minded student at the University of Chicago and to my surprise she didn't see the problem.
She said the Redskins name and team is a part of Americana to which I responded that slavery once was too.
By the way I'm Jewish and I wouldn't want a team named the Kikes or Heebs.
Let the Jew jokes commence.
Okayyyyyyyy, A rabbi and an Indian walk into a bar....
While I admit the Redskins may have the most "offensive" of American Indian related sports names, I have to wonder. If Washington changed their name, would Kansas City be next? What about the Atlanta Braves? Heck there is a high school team where I live called the Mohawks who use an American Indian theme. Please stop making Washington the only example when there are many others.
You don't see the differance? A chief is a leader, a brave is a male warrior. a redskin is a slang term for all American indians based not on a good attribute, but on the color of their skin. It is a term of hate and ignorance. Just because the team has had that name for so long does not make it right. They should change their name, not because we force them to, but because it is the right thing to do. If you don't see the reasoning behind this then I really feel sorry for you. Someday you will mature and realise that we are all human and should all be treated with respect.
If you were intelligent enough to figure out that the name 'Redskin' itself was the derogatory label used by the good ole white boy club to slander our Native Americans into submission- well-then, you'd get it. You're not- so, uh, you don't. I could CARE LESS about some idiotic song of this second rate bruiser team- the redskin name speaks for itself. May they flounder into bankruptcy- for all we care.
I agree, I'm part native american and I feel offended, that's the reason I dislike Washington, Kansas City, In baseball: Atlanta, Cleveland; If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
Yes, but it the high profile Redskins went away, I bet your little Mohawks would be next.
Well yes maybe so. Lets stop and really think about it for a minute. the names are rather ofensive, we can not call anyone else derogatory names, but it is ok to call First Nation's people names?? Why is that? do you really think the Washington Wetbacks would get far? What about the Washington Spicks, or the Washington Chinks? Or we could call them the Washington N(you figure it out)! this one is just as bad and any of those.
Kevin writes: "American Indians (that is the preferred phraseology of Russell Means, the Lakota founder of the American Indian Movement)"
Sorry, Kevin, but Russell Means is a bigot. Here's a bit of his interview with Bernard Henri-Lévy, from his 2006 book, "American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville":
"His welcoming sentence, accompanied by an immense burst of laughter: "You here, Mr. Lévy? Not in Israel yet? But I heard on the radio that Sharon wanted all the Jews in France to emigrate to Tel Aviv! Ha, ha!"
And when I give a start, when I let him know that I haven't come all this way to listen to this kind of bad joke, and show that I don't find this sort of thing particularly funny, that I'm a Jew who is sympathetic to the Indian cause and that I came expressly to ask him why on earth no one ever had the idea to create a kind of Yad Vashem of Indian suffering rather than the casinos that are a slow-working poison, I get this terrible reply, which is hammered out, word by word, in a restrained, affected tone of rage: "I don't need advice from Zionists; you understand? I don't need their advice; when I needed them, they weren't there; I went to see them, I went to see the Jews in Cleveland, and I waited, oh! I waited a long time and no one -- you hear me? -- no one answered my call; so don't try to give me advice! A little respect, no advice!"
And then: "What? The Moonies? Yes, sir, that's right, it's not a rumor -- it's true that I gave a series of lectures sponsored by the Moonies. They've done less harm to me than the Catholics. Unlike you Jews, they held out their hand to me. When you're in our situation, Mr. Lévy, when the whole world is against you, you're not choosy, you take what you can."
The rest of the interview is weird, vehement, sometimes zany, but, all the same, more controlled. When I tell him about the powwow, Russell Means replies that "Tom Daschle is a snake," the "worst human being in America," and that's why he's a leader of the Democratic Party. He explains to me that "Indian politics," as it was formalized in the Indian Recognition Act of 1934, accomplished the feat of being the "secret model of Hitler" in its treatment of the "unwanted"; the "carbon copy," "thirty years early," of the Bantu Development Act, which "institutionalized apartheid in South Africa"; and, today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the last case in the world of "pure and simple communism." He warns me, with fiery gaze and stentorian voice, that "every official Indian person you meet in this country" is corrupt and a collaborator. You understand? he asks. A collaborator. (He actually says, straining at a French accent, "a Vichy.") An "apple Indian," red outside and white inside. [...]
I am treated to a comical but sincere exposition on the necessity of "kicking out the white man" -- in other words, seceding -- and, at the same time, without his appearing to realize any contradiction, on the fact that the Indians could take advantage of the fact that reservations "don't have to worry about minimum wage," don't have heal-benefit problems," and, especially, "have no unions" in order to "attract industry."
And on and on.
Kevin, I admire the letter to the Redskins and naturally, I agree about the song and about the nickname, but on the other hand, I don't your politically-correct nicknames either, like "persons of color."
I thought this was a sports page? But while we're on this topic, let's get rid of these offensive names:
Anaheim ANGELS - religious
Los ANGELES - religious
INDIANa - racist
INDIANapolis - racist
North DAKOTA - racist
South DAKOTA - racist
and on and on and on.
The grieviance mongers never tire.
Exactly well put! Like most of the whiners and complainers... if you give in a bit they demand more. Its called moving the goalposts. See, if the US Government gave back all the land to the "native americans", gave the entire treasury to all BLACKS who had slaves in their history, set up houses and cities for immigrants... there would still be complaining. The United States of America. The Greatest Country in history, period..bar NONE. Greater than the Empires of the world. No America wasnt, isnt and will not be PERFECT. But even now people want to come HERE, not to Korea, Iran, Iraq. Despots and cowardly tyrants hate America because America is great. Islamist HATE America because they KNOW Christian America is right.