I understand and respect that Native Americans are near-universally offended by the name of the Washington Redskins and would like to see it changed. I wonder, however, if it is possible to find a replacement name that honors Native Americans rather than offending them. I’ve seen this debate go on for a couple of decades now. There was the controversy over the tomahawk chop done by Atlanta Braves and Florida State Seminoles fans. There was the debate over the Chief Wahoo mascot of the Cleveland Indians. And there have been a lot of high schools and colleges that have dropped Indian tribes as their team names.
Aside from fans acting like insensitive idiots, I wonder if it is possible for sports teams to use Native American themes without it being disrespectful in some way. My opinion doesn’t really matter, but when I was a kid I thought it was cool that the Cowboys played the Indians, even if they were called the Redskins. I’d like to see that tradition maintained in some way.
Perhaps changing Washington Redskins to Washington American Natives would honor them and also REMIND THE IGNORANT OR PLAIN STUPID PSEUDO-AMERICANS THAT WE ARE DESCENDANTS OF THE TRESPASSING IMMIGRANTS.
Two examples: Seminoles and Illini. I am a graduate of the University of Illinois, and the Illini has been the team name. Of course, all the actual Illini were killed before the University was founded, which has simplified the issue. There is a band called the Peoria Tribe which are descendents.
Illinois has never been asked to give up the team name. They did give up Chief Illiniwek, a dreadful cartoon character who wore a long headdress of feathers, and who danced a styilized dance at basketball halftimes. Even back in 70-75, when I was at U of I, I knew that this character was a dreadfully shameful figure. But there are, predictably, many Illinois grads who still want him back.
The Florida State Seminoles are not in danger of losing their name, since many of the actual Seminoles love the team, and there was a tribal vote to allow the use of the name.
The North Dakota Fighting Sioux are no more. There are a whole bunch of Sioux tribes. In fact, the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota peoples are all Sioux. The problem for UND is that some tribes voted in favor and some against. That killed it for them.
What I dislike is not the name Illini or Sioux or whatever. These can be used in a respectful way. Seminole as well. The Cleveland Indians are the worst use of an Indian characature currently out there. That grinning Injun sets my teeth on edge. I strongly dislike that mascot. The term Redskin is also unacceptable in my view. Washington Indians may work, Washington Pequots might be OK, Washington Lumbees may be OK. Redskins sucks.
The biggest problem with the Redskins – and the reason they are usually the focus more than the Chiefs or Braves etc. – is that at the time the team name was created, “Redskins” was one of the most common racist slurs used for Native Americans. It’s literally like naming a team the Kikes or Wetbacks or … fill in your epithet. Calling it a “tradition” doesn’t make it right, or even legitimate.
It also doesn’t help that the Redskins organization itself has a pretty shameful history of racism. Long before Atlanta or New Orleans or the Florida teams, the Redskins in the 40’s & 50’s marketed themselves to the South, and they didn’t integrate their team until 1962 – eight years after the next-to-last NFL team to integrate. Even then, it was only because by remaining the only all-white team in the NFL, they’d gone with only one win each of their final two years before integrating, and had become a league laughingstock.
The Redskins name is “tradition” like the Klan is “tradition.” Some traditions are meant to be destroyed.
Maybe “Washington Reds” then they could keep the same uniforms. Too political? “Washington Redbacks”? I hesitate to suggest “Washington Rednecks”.
Many years ago, when I lived in the DC suburbs, this was already controversial. I always remember one Native American spokesman saying, “What would you think of calling a team ‘the New York N___s’ (racial slur for AA’s)?” That was how they saw the name “Redskins”.
I agree that’s how I saw the name Redskins.
I recall, at this point, an argument I had with a colleague at work about team names. There must have been some news at the time about changing the name of the Cleveland Indians or Atlanta Braves or something because someone introduced the topic and he went on a rant about how these names honor the Native Americans. He (correctly) cited a Sports Illustrated survey that said most Native Americans like the names in baseball.
I brought up the Redskins. He saw no problem with that either.
At that point I chose discretion. My colleague – who is now a friend on Facebook although we’ve not seen each other in over a decade – is a practicing religious Jew. He posts lots of pictures of his son in various religious ceremonies. I though for a while about saying, “If you think Washington Redskins is okay, what do you think about Arizona Wetbacks, or New Orleans Niggers, or Montreal Frogs, or New York Kikes?” But I chose to simply drop the topic.
Probably was wise. That probably would not have changed his mind but would have made him very angry. But I still think the comparison is dead-on.
We ran into this at my Alma Mater, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. When I was there, we were the Miami Redskins, and we actually had a mascot who wasn’t a character in a costume, but a student from the university who auditioned and won the role of the Miami Indian, He studied a war dance with members of the existing Miami Indian tribe and was sanctioned to perform a war dance prior to all of the games. The profile of the Miami Indian was on the basketball court, and it was a realistic representation rather than a comical one.
At some point during the 1980’s, the MiamimTribe decided to rescind their endorsement of the name and logo and the university had a poll in which students and Alumni could chose the new mascot. Hence the dorky Redhawk.
For the Redskins, this would be a good move. You keep the colors, and simply replace the caricature injun with a bird. It would really improve.
Let’s change the name of the great state of Indiana…home of the original Ku Klux Klan, by the way, and still amazingly racist in the many of the more rural areas .
And Indianapolis too.
How about Washington, DC? The District of Columbia. Read up on Columbus and his own crimes against Native Americans. Helluva a name for the capital of a peaceful, post-racial megapower, eh?
But…wait a minute here!!! If one were to add up the skin hues of all of the people murdered or otherwise irreparably harmed by U.S. economic imperialism over the past say 150 years and then averaged out the color, what do you think it would be?
Brownish, without a doubt.
So all of these “unfair” team names and other derogatory and/or otherwise insulting place names that supposedly honor the fallen victims of our white supremacist, genocidal policies? They are just the spoils of war, and since it is perfectly obvious by the placement of our troops throughout the world that this white supremacist doctrine is still in place no matter what the color of our supposed president, then that war against the so-called “inferior” races remains well in place.
Given that set of facts, the Redskins are still the Redskins and no matter whether that name is changed for political reasons or not…gotta get them brownish voters, don’tcha know…the same policies will remain in place until…
Until when?
Until the chickens finally come home to roost.
Bet on it.
Old joke:
,
Yup.
Like dat.
Watch.
Later…
AG
We could call it The Commonwealth of Hoosier.
Or Bokononia in honor of Kurt Vonnegut. Unless you prefer some other Vonnegut literary reference. Titania comes to mind.
Hoosieripolis?
I’m on board with a Vonnegut reference. I never did understand where the Hoosier thing came from. Who’s yer daddy, maybe.
Here’s a start to where it came from, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Hoosier
Seems it started in the 1830s and there’s a substantial academic and folk literature devoted to what it means.
I would be curious if it were related to the same origin and the Canadian slang “hoser” for prairie farmers although the etymology of that one is more hosed up than Hoosier.
oh well as long as your childhood joy continues – that’s really the important thing.
I guess you have to ask yourself, if the name was the Harlem Jungle Bunnies, or the San Francisco Gooks, or the New York Kikes, would we be having this discussion?
Wouldn’t a very large group of people be upset if they were called the Washington Rednecks?
Redskins is a racial slur, plain and simple. Indian properly refers to people from the nation of India. Here in America, it has a negative connotation. The only reason these names are still in use is because Native Americans are a small and marginalized minority, poor and despised and ignored.
I agree that the name needs to be changed. I didn’t think I was inviting a debate on that topic. My question is whether it is possible to maintain the team’s historic association with Native Americans at all. And, then, more generally, what is appropriate for mascots in sports?
The San Francisco Samurai? The New York Warriors, featuring a young bronze-age hero with a sling?
I live in Boston and root for the Celtics. Irish people up here get the logo tattooed on their bodies as a symbol of Irish pride.
But you’re saying any Native American name would be innately derogatory, such that it’s not even worth discussing whether a better name that keeps the reference would be appropriate.
What’s different?
Good point. Schaumburg IL High has a team called “the Saxons”. At least it’s pretty accurate. I do like it when, as mentioned above, the actual tribal council authorizes the name and costumes and dances are historically accurate rather than caricatures.
The Irishmen I know here in Chicago (which includes a lot of Irish-Italians, Irish-Polish, and Irish-Germans) are proud of the Notre Dame name “Fighting Irish”. Along those lines, I would be offended by “The Chicago Wops” but not “The Chicago Romans”.
It depends on who’s doing the naming, doesn’t it?
Any Native American name that a white marketing guy comes up with is likely to be derogatory. And the most controversial of the mascot names have little to do with anything relevant to the cities hosting the teams.
Unlike Orioles and Ravens for Baltimore, Celtics and Patriots for Boston,…
What exactly is the reference for the Washington Redskins? There is none for the Boston Browns(sox) turned Boston Braves turned Milwaukee Braves turned Atlanta Braves (if I’ve got my history right). Same for the Cleveland Indians.
Thanks to some relocations and the Hallmark Corporation, we now have the Kansas City Royals (hallmark and crown).
The ownership that the Boston basketball team “the Celtics” was not Irish.
They did it to appeal to the city’s Irish populace.
Good point about the nickname needing to reference something about the city. There is a reason why “Celitcs” was embraced – because it reflected the city.
I believe the Boston Braves were so-called because the Boston Tea Party involved dressing up in native costumes.
“‘Redskin’ is a racial slur.”
No. It’s not.
Faux outrage has declared it so, is all, in the continuing, multi-cornered race war of identity politics.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=redskin
OK, let’s start with this:
So for Washington, I think the appropriate replacement is the “Washington Lobbyists”. For many years, the Washington Senators.seemed to bring a baseball team (some kind of) luck.
For professional and college teams, there’s another opportunity to sell for a brand. The “Washington KBRs” or the “Washington Lockheed-Martins”.
Just think of all the schools named after traitors with mascots called “Generals” or “Rebels”.
And during the McCarthy period, the Cincinnati Reds adopted the name Cincinnati Redlegs to avoid censure.
Did you by any chance cheer for the Redskins to beat the Cowboys?
The Washington FatCats.
The logo can be a grinning, Cheshire-cat looking figure that resembles Franklin Roosevelt in the picture from the inaugural parade.
That was my suggestion back when they wanted to change the name of the Bullets.
Cincinnati Redlegs? I hope they didn’t play in Missouri.
A good way to honor American Indians is (drum roll, please) the Seattle Seahawks. Duh . . .
The D.C. pro team should just change its name to anything that is not or can be construed as racist or insulting. Have you ever listened to the words of the so-called “fight” song that some white man wrote for the team. Do so and get back to me. It contains all the negative imagery of American Indians any one could ever think of. Just for the record, I am an American Indian. I am a member of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians from Tacoma, Washington.
If you’re looking for names of teams that reference ethnic heritage that is approved by the groups that are referenced consider the Boston Celtics – referenced elsewhere here, the Minnesota Vikings (a reference to the hi percentage of Scandinavians in the area) or the Fighting Irish.
But how do you do that with a group that was essentially occupied, slaughtered, and put into desert ghettos by the government in Washington? Washington, the same city that has the team in question.
I’m not sure I know the answer. Perhaps you might choose to honor one of that group’s victorious battles in that lost genocidal war.
Maybe the Washington Sitting Bulls.
If that doesn’t work, let’s recall a common tradition of football nicknames of choosing human groups that cause(d) fear and suffering, a la the Raiders, Vikings, etc. And borrow from a name that was suggested for Stanford when they dropped their own “Indians” nickname in 1982.
The Washington Robber Barons.
It seems to me that if the Washington football franchise owners really wanted to resolve the issue they’d get some representatives from the Native American community who would help in coming up with a better name than “Redskins”.
My high school team was the Red Raiders, which I believe were named after the Leni Lenape, the local Indians of the Jersey Shore who fought back when white settlers moved into the area.. Last time I checked I think that they were now just the Raiders, and using a pirate motif.
As Confucius is supposed to have said (a real quotation not a Charlie Chan joke):
“I’m not saying such a thing is impossible. But I, in all my years, have never seen it. “
I attended Stanford University, starting just a few years after they jettisoned the Indian mascot. [we’re now the Cardinal, the color not the bird, very high on the lameness scale but inoffensive]. One the one hand, there was a mascot who appeared at football games in traditional costume. He was from the Yurok tribe and clearly didn’t feel disrespected. On the other hand there was a lot of artwork with a big-nosed caricature not any prettier than the Cleveland indian.
I’m reminded of that point in the movie Lincoln, when the president told the traitors of the certainty of ratification of the 13th Amendment. The head traitor said, “But that will decimate our traditions, our way of life!” My response was, “That, sir, is the point.”
I believe the DC team’s name and tradition should be wiped out – the Washington Palefaces or Washington Rednecks would be a suitable replacement. If people find that offensive then they can think on that for the next 70 years.
The Washington Bureaucracy would probably be more accurate – Washington Gridlock is an option too.
On the other hand …
I can think of one advantage to keeping the Redskins name.
As long as the nation’s capital has a team in the most popular sports league with a nickname “Redskins” NO ONE can win an argument that racism is not a serious issue in America.
My high school mascot was the Warrior. The logo was a Native American who looked a lot like the one on the Indian head nickel. I think if they ever had to change the mascot, we could just change the logo to a Klingon and we’d be all set.
I think the Washington Warriors has a good ring to it.
I hope someone else has said this, but why not re-name these teams with the actual names of the native peoples that lived there before we came and ruined everything?
Instead of the Redskins, the team could be called The Washington Piscataways.
Probably an academic question, ultimately. Here in Taiwan, the professional sports teams are named after corporations. So we have the Taiwan Beer Team (owned by the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor monopoly), the Taiwan Sugar team, the LaNew Bears (LaNew is a shoe store franchise, Bears is one of their clothing lines–I doubt they realize the other potential connotations to their mascot choice), the Chinatrust (a bank) Whales, etc.
In the US, corporations already own the naming rights to most of the famous venues and arenas, and look at how rapidly that situation came about. Can it be long before they pick the mascots too? Looks like Washington’s stadium is named FedEx Field. Let’s just rename the team The Couriers and call it a day. It’s going to happen one way or another, as it is.