I’ve lived near Washington, D.C., for 21 years, but somehow the local obsession for the Washington Redskins has never taken hold. Most of my “NFL time” has been spent rooting for Washington’s agony of defeat.
Recent seasons have been very, very good to me. But this year, an impressive rookie quarterback, Robert Griffin III, led the team into the playoffs. In the opening game, RGIII and the ’Skins jumped out to a 14-0 lead. But Griffin, already hurt, re-injured his knee and had to leave the game. The Seattle Seahawks came back to win, ending the Redskins’ season.
That’s when Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy pounced, blaming the team’s loss squarely on “bad karma” caused by the “offensive team name and demeaning sports mascot.” Milloy even called the star quarterback a “noble savage.”
Sports columnist Mike Wise urged Griffin to take up the issue of the team’s name. “I just figure that, as a good, decent inhabitant of the planet,” Wise wrote, “he would respect the groundswell of offended people who don’t want to cheer for a team that enshrines America’s persecution of its indigenous people.”
Hey, Native Americans are cool, and U.S. Government policy toward misnamed “Indians” was very uncool — and dishonest and corrupt. So while I hate to see teams being coerced to toss out mascots like Chiefs, Braves, Warriors, Fighting Sioux, Seminoles, Fighting Illini, I think it a grand effrontery that Washington’s football team is named the Redskins.
It’s not just that the name “Redskins” offends — the mascot represents Washington, home to the government that cheated and abused Native Americans.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
8 replies on “What’s in a Game?”
I can’t believe, Paul, that you are jumping on the “offended” band wagon! Give me a break! I always say to people who say they are offended by something as innocuous as the name of a school mascot or sports team to get a life! Rather, they ought to be offended at the blatant lying of Obama and most everyone in government that a gun kills and that the rich should pay more. So, Paul, GET A LIFE!!!
Paul, the Washington NFL team should never have picked that name and should drop it.
But Russell Means would disagree that Indians are misnamed. His contention was that India at that time was called Hindustan, and that Columbus names the folks he saw in the New World “Indians” because he thought they were close to Yahweh — “en dios”. I have not had time to check his contention.
Jeff D.
Just because they were lied to and cheated by the US government earlier does not give them priority. Tell them to get in line with the other 320 million Americans who are being lied to and whose heritage is being squandered.
Thanks for the comments.
Dagney — I’m not jumping or even sitting on any bandwagons, just sayin’ that I find the Redskins’ name an affront to decency, from a historical political standpoint and otherwise.
Jeff — VERY interesting. Please let me know if you discover any further info on that.
Drik — Great point! Of course, let’s not have any line at all for reparations that would have to be paid by innocent taxpayers. Let’s stop similar injustices happening around us today.
Quote: “a team that enshrines America’s persecution of its indigenous people.”
en·shrine
[ in shrn ]
TRANSITIVE VERB
1.
give special protection to something: to protect something from change
2.
put something into a shrine: to keep or cherish something in a shrine or other special place
en·shrine·ment NOUN
Thesaurus
VERB
Synonyms: preserve, protect, treasure, hallow, cherish
The history of the colonists and the Indians is a subject of great complexity, as anyone familiar with family and county histories can tell you. It is estimated that at the time of the arrival of the first settlers there were over 2500 Indian languages, and the relations between these tribes also is an incredibly complicated. A real scholar of local and tribal histories would blush to make any broad generalizations of the tribe-tribe or tribe-settler relations.
And yet this is what Wise, along with those who now write the history books, do. They “enshrine” a story of grievances, endlessly repeated, one-sided, and done in such a way as to incite bitterness in today’s generation. If examined carefully it is narrowly defined and selectively applied to create an endless source of offense, blame, and resentment. Again, it is resentment and the calculated rehearsal of a selective past memory that is being “enshrined” by those interested in class warfare and its political uses. But the truth is we have many great individuals, both Indians and settlers, to thank for our success and for reaching our ideal of “equality before the law,” and more reason for unity than for bitter dissension. – Despite the misdeeds of the US Federal Gov’t, both past and present.
Communists and NGOs today claim to represent “indiginous people,” as can be seen in the ominous wording of the draft of the Rio +20 agreements. But the aim is to force people and farmers off of their land.
For example: “Federal Brazilian police and military personnel, some wearing United Nations insignia, are forcibly relocating whole communities in Brazil at gunpoint under the guise of returning huge tracts of land to a small group of Indians whose ancestors were allegedly there at some point.”
http://thenewamerican.com/world-news/south-america/item/14131-amid-federal-land-grab-in-brazil-whole-towns-evicted-at-gunpoint
The mayor of Washington, DC, says he wants the Washington Redskins to change their name to something less offensive.
So they’re changing it to the Maryland Redskins.
Conan O’Brian
No matter what you call them, someone will be offended. Tell anyone and everyone who is offended to get lost. If they’re really that offended, I suggest they never watch a single game played by the team from DC and that they boycott all products sold or promoted by the NFL.