Change nothing but change the name Redskins
“Once Daniel Snyder capitulates the matter will be swept beneath the rug within a week and our attention will be drawn elsewhere. That’s the way these things work.”
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The pictograph is on the wall. We all know what must be done. A societal tidal wave has engulfed Dan Snyder and the Washington Redskins and it will result in a name change for the NFL franchise. And it should. If Albuquerque had a team called the Wetbacks or Brooklyn had one called the Kikes people would have freaked out a long time ago. The only shocking thing about the Redskins controversy is that it took until after Y2K for it to hit America’s radar.
It’s no longer a question of if; it’s a matter of when and how Daniel Snyder, the bullheaded team owner and his cronies will agree to call the Washington team something else – anything else. The general public and now the Federal Government have spoken. It no longer matters who is right and who is wrong. Debate on the issue has closed. The Redskins cannot continue to be called the Redskins and they won’t for much longer. I give until the end of the 2014 NFL season at the longest.
I hereby nominate “the Washington Americans”. It’ll really piss off the Patriots and I like that.
The tradition that Daniel Snyder wished to hold onto no longer matters. It’s already dead and gone. The way things work now justice is what the majority insists it is. Fair or not. Dan Snyder has had his days in kangaroo court and the people have spoken. Shouted, actually. And now Snyder has two choices: he can concede to a name change or allow his hand to be forced and wind up looking like a modern day Hitler in the process.
Snyder stupidly still insists that he will never, ever give it to public pressure and change the name but Snyder is dead wrong. He is going to change the name. He will, by hook or by crook, comply with the forces of societal evolution. The change may come by act of Congress or through punitive action by the league but it’s coming one way or the other. And it as far as I am concerned it can’t come soon enough.
I am bored with the entire Redskins conversation and all the blowhards on every side of it.
Snyder himself has demonstrated a level of insensitivity and stubbornness that makes Donald Sterling look like he deserved to be the NAACP Man of the Year. Snyder and the organization around him have managed to say all the wrong things ever since this controversy emerged. and the Redskins fans whose heads have been buried in the sand look like fools now.
The Redskins name is clearly and obviously racist. It’s not OK to use it anymore.
The people who stake claim to the outrage surrounding the name Redskins, are hardly better than those who back it, though. Many are grandstanding politicians and other pale-skinned people who are looking for a soap box to stand on so that they can shout out their contrived social awareness. Others are actual Native Americans who have much bigger problems in their cultures than the name of a big time sports franchise. Poverty, alcoholism, abuse, lack of education and nutrition concerns plague this country’s Indian tribes. Native people struggle perhaps more than any minority in America yet their plight is publicized among the least. That’s why some Native Americans have embraced the Redskins debate. It has the nation’s attention and it makes white people feel guilty.
If the Native population believes that the Washington Redskins becoming the D.C. Americans is going to impact their lives in any way they’re wrong. Once Daniel Snyder capitulates the matter will be swept beneath the rug within a week and our attention will be drawn elsewhere. That’s the way these things work.
I heard a Native woman interviewed about the Redskins controversy on a big time investigative sports show. She said something about her children holding their heads high and the cycle of self-loathing in her community and she indicated that the Redskins name was a reason for it. I realized then just what a diversion this modern controversy had become. People are pinning their hopes on the idea that once they resolve this issue than their other problems will begin to fall away. This isn’t simply a matter of political correctness. It’s much more than that.
Giving the Washington NFL franchise a different name is only going to result in a marketing blitz for the team owner. It’s not going to make life better for a forgotten minority. Substantive change is going to have to come via the kind of cultural reform ESPN doesn’t cover.
Let’s get this Redskins thing over with. And while we’re at it let’s let gays marry and smoke legal pot in all fifty states.
We all know that in twenty years the Redskins won’t be the Redskins, Larry and Chad will share a mortgage and everyone over 21 will be buying RJR Nabisco brand joints at the liquor store so why are we wasting time? Nothing is more frustrating than watching a clear outcome meet with a hopeless resistance.
