Well, that’s a relief. It turns out that Native Americans are not offended by the name of Washington’s football team after all. ADVERTISING Well, that’s a relief. It turns out that Native Americans are not offended by the name of
Well, that’s a relief. It turns out that Native Americans are not offended by the name of Washington’s football team after all.
You know, the Redskins.
A new Washington Post poll finds nine out of 10 Native Americans say they are not offended by the Washington Redskins name. That, the Post tells us, is a sign of “how few ordinary Indians” — instead of, you know, those inflammatory identity-politics activist types — “have been persuaded by a national movement to change the football team’s moniker.”
Actually “how few” is how I would describe the number of people surveyed. But that doesn’t mean the poll wasn’t scientific.
The five-month survey of 504 people, according to the Post, includes every state and the district.
It also agrees with a 2004 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the Post notes, and the responses were “broadly consistent” regardless of age, income, education, political party or proximity to reservations.
More than seven in 10 respondents said they did not feel the word “Redskin” was disrespectful to Indians and eight out of 10 said they would not be offended if a non-native called them that name.
Fine. I respect the results of the survey, even though it does not totally dampen my support for the Native American groups that pushed for the name change.
My support is pretty well known. I even became an Internet meme after a column I wrote two years ago was ridiculed, apparently by fans of the Redskins.
The NBA had banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life over his leaked racist comments.
Sterling, I reasoned, was getting punished for insults that he uttered in private — before they were leaked. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, by contrast, was insulting Native American Indians in public every day that he refused to change his team’s name.
But Snyder has rebuffed all critics with the resounding declaration that he would “NEVER,” all caps, change the team’s name.
Yet long-time District of Columbia sports fans were accustomed to such public-relations-sensitive name changes. Back when the Washington Bullets became an embarrassingly ironic name for the city’s pro basketball team in the 1990s as the city suffered through an epidemic of gun violence-related homicides, owner Abe Pollin in 1997 changed the team’s name to its present-day Wizards.
Despite some wisecracks about whether Wizards sounded like a Ku Klux Klan meeting, the new name stuck.
Weeks later I discovered that I had become an Internet meme when The People Who Have Nothing Better To Do With Their Time Than Copy-And-Paste Email Jokes, made a “Response to Clarence Page” essay go viral.
“Let’s ditch the Kansas City Chiefs, the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians,” the essay argues. “If your shorts are in a wad because of the reference the name Redskins makes to skin color, then we need to get rid of the Cleveland Browns.”
Cute. But let’s face it: Such a lunge for levity cannot distracts from the biggest glaring offense in the Redskins’ name. Unlike the Chiefs, Braves, Indians, etc., “Redskins” is a racial slur.
As Oneida Nation Representative Ray Halbritter and National Congress of American Indians Executive Director Jacqueline Pata, two early leaders of the name-change movement, responded to the poll, the results are actually “encouraging.”
“Native Americans are resilient,” Halbritter and Para wrote in a joint statement. “However, that proud resilience does not give the NFL a license to continue marketing, promoting and profiting off of a dictionary-defined racial slur — one that tells people outside of our community to view us as mascots.”
But since this is the age of Donald Trump, thick skins and anti-political correctness, I don’t expect the Redskins’ name to go soon, although I have considered possible compromises.
Sportscaster Tony Kornheiser, for example, once suggested keeping the name but replacing the team’s symbol with a steaming bowl of roasted red potatoes. Sounds delicious.
But, as an African-American, I would like to offer keeping the ethnic flavor but with a different color: The Washington Blackskins.
After all, if an ethnic slur really makes a cool team name, as Snyder insists, I’d love to hear what his black players, in particular, think of the honor.
Email Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.
