Let me start by pointing out that this blog post is for my general readership, which is largely non-Native. And I of course am not Native. So all I’m trying to do is contextualize the issue for those who may not know much about it. I’m certainly not speaking for Native people. If you’re curious as to what they think but don’t know any Native people you can talk to, there are plenty of Native people writing about it. And the ones I’m familiar with have been unanimous on this issue for many, many years now.
Let’s start with the word redskin. It’s a slur. Period. This award-winning book cover for C. Richard King’s Redskins: Insult and Brand (2015) illustrates the point as succinctly and forthrightly as anything I’ve seen. Is redskin equivalent to nigger? I don’t know, and honestly, it’s not for me to say. But it is unquestionably a racist epithet at least on a par with things like darkie and slant. The parallel to slant is actually very relevant; more on that below.
It’s time, once and for all to dispel the myth that the team’s name has ever “honored” Indigenous peoples in any way. That’s utter poppycock for several reasons. First, the name was not chosen to honor Native peoples. It was chosen in much the same way many early-20th century Indian-themed team names were chosen. Along with Eagles and Bull Dogs, Indians were seen as an animalistic mascot signifying something distinctly American.
Furthermore, the man the team claims it was named for, their former head coach William “Lone Star” Dietz, was a criminal and a fraud. He was NOT Native. But he pretended to be. A dark-haired white man of German descent from Wisconsin, he made a career out of lying about being Indian. He played football at the famous Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania (Jim Thorpe’s alma mater) by pretending to be Indian, and stuck with the lie for the rest of his life. He eventually stole the identity of an actual Lakota man and even lied to the man’s sister in letter’s claiming to be him. We’re talking major league scum bag of the highest order. And a felon; he used his pretend Indian tribal membership as an excuse to dodge the draft during World War I. There was a court case an everything.
That’s who the Washington football team claimed as the legitimate source of their name. You can read all about it in Linda Waggoner’s excellent article on Dietz.
Furthermore, longtime team owner George Preston Marshall was a notorious racist. He helped segregate the National Football League into a whites only league. On the back end, he was the last owner to draft a black player in 1962 and only did so because the U.S. Secretary of the Interior literally threatened to revoke his stadium lease if he did not. Ernie Davis, the player Marshall drafted, refused to sign and demanded a trade because Marshall was still an avowed segregationist and remained so through the 1960s.
So the idea that Marshall was consciously honoring a minority group is utterly laughable.
I’m not laughing.
Another second reason why the name never honored Native peoples is because Native peoples repeatedly said that they did not consider it an honor. This is really Human Relations 101, the kind of thing you figure out in kindergarten: respecting and honoring people is a two way street. Your intentions must be respectful AND they must be received that way. If you don’t intend to honor someone, you’re not honoring someone. But even if you do intend to honor someone, and they tell you they don’t consider your actions an honor, then guess what: you’re not honoring them.
It would be like me earnestly insisting I’m honoring white, Midwestern protestants by sticking my genitalia in a jar of mayonaise. I might be the sincerest guy in the world, but if John and Jane Ohio don’t feel honored by my odd display, then I’m not honoring them. It really is their call.
But what about various reports over the years Native peoples didn’t care about the team’s name?
A couple of points are worth considering. One is that no, Native people were not always unanimous in thinking that the team’s name was a pressing issue, although I personally never met anyone who was happy with it. But we must remember that Native people are in fact people, which means they’re not monolithic. I think of it like this: As recently as March, Donald Trump still had a 14% approval rating among African Americans, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a racist asshole.
But hey, maybe you don’t think Trump’s racist (or sexist), and you also don’t think redskin is a slur. Okay, that’s your opinion. But all it really means is that the chances you’re a white person are very, very, very high. And if you’re not white, you’re probably this petulant asshole/criminal.
And as for those polls claiming lots of Native people didn’t care about the name? They were shit.
There was the crappy Sports Illustrated poll, and a couple of Washington Post polls. They all had lousy methodology. For example, doing nothing to verify that the Native people they called up randomly were actually even Native. They also tended to focus on populations on or near rural reservations because they couldn’t move past their own stereotypes. But a majority of Native people haven’t lived on reservations since the mid-20th century. A majority of them have lived in cities and suburbs since the 1970s. And of course it is precisely in cities and suburbs, not isolated rural reservations, where pro sports culture is fiercest, and where actual Native people have to put up with various white 
and black people waving Redskin pennants, wearing jerseys, singing “Hail to the Redskins,” and occasionally even dressing up in red face like this legendary fan/dip shit.
I don’t know, maybe he was a great guy when not publicly performing racist caricature, but fuck him. He’s an adult; he should’ve known better.
The WaPo polls in particularly were shameful. Sports Illustrated is just a sports magazine. What can you really expect?. But the Post at least aspires to be a world class newspaper. However, much of its coverage on this issue over the years was nothing more than shoddy journalism in the service of blind sports homerism. Just really professionally embarrassing.
Remember that when they inevitably publish some rote editorial about how overdue thie name change was.
Now that we’re here, we might ask why team owner Daniel Snyder finally acquiesced? Keep in mind that he has owned the team for over two decades now. And for that entire time defiant. He wrapped himself in the team’s heritage. He refused to acknowledge the name was a slur. He clung to every cliche about “honoring” Native people. He even pretended to honor Indian tribes by buying them off. And he fought mightily against a lawsuit that sought to end the Redskins trademark.
For many years under federal law, one could not trademark a racial epithet. That was the grounds for a legal challenge brought forth by Cheyenne/Muscogee writer Suzan Shown Harjo in 1992. It almost worked.
Harjo appealed to revoke the trademark. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office agreed. The NFL sued her. In 2005 the NFL won Pro-Football, Inc. v. Harjo on a technicality, not on the merits of the case. Snyder wasn’t the owner when it started, but he was when it ended, and he celebrated the victory.
Navajo social worker Amanda Blackhorse revived the case. Once again in 2014 the USPTO sided with Native plaintiffs. Once again the NFL sued. And once again a very strong case was undermined by other factors.
In 2017 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of In Re Tam. It was about a rock group called The Slants, whose members were Asian American. They challenged the constitutionality of banning trademark protection for racial epithets. After all, if they as Asian Americans wanted to call themselves The Slants, by what rights did the United States deny them trademark protection? They won the case. The pending case of Blackhosre v. Pro-Football Inc. was now moot. Once again, Snyder celebrated.
But three years later, here we are.
So what happened? Did Daniel Snyder suddenly see the light? Unlikely. The guy is a legendary asshole. But he’s also a greedy bastard, even by the standards of NFL owners, which is saying something. He responds to money. This time there were carrots and sticks.
First the sticks.
FedEx, his most important sponsor, wanted the named changed. Nike stopped carrying Redskins apparel. And Snyder wants a new, taxpayer-funded stadium in Washington, but the D.C. City Council has made it clear that wasn’t going to happen until he changed the name.
There are also carrots. First he’ll sell a ton of old Redskins merchandise before the change. Last chance! Then, after the change, he’ll sell a ton of new merchandise for the new name.
If you want to understand his priorities, just look at the team’s press release. They are concerned about their sponsors, fans, and community. In that order.
Either way, Washington’s sporting disgrace is soon to be over. Hopefully the racist shit masquerading as a baseball team in Atlanta, along with red face mockeries in Kansas City, Cleveland, Chicago, and Tallahassee, Florida are soon to follow.