Hail to the Redskins! Hail victory…but do the Redskins have a racist name? Is the name Redskin derogatory? One name suggested to replace the name Redskins is the Red-tails. I am not sure if they mean the hawk or the black flying aces of WWII. Most folks resist the name change. What do you think?
The Washington Bureaucrats? The Hogettes could all carry Samsonite briefcases. “Hail to the Bureaucrats, Hail Tax and Spend……
It ain’t right, and they should change it.
We once or twice had a baseball team called the Washington Senators but they moved away. I suppose we could use that name but would have to do so knowing they would never win a game–just like their namesakes on Capitol Hill. 😉
Proposed names for Dan Snyder’s Football team :
Washington Marylanders
Washington Meglomaniacs
Washington Devils (making fun of Snyder’s ridiculous claims of anti-semitism by Wash City Paper)
Washington Censors (making fun of Snyder disallowing fan signs when he wants to stop criticism)
Washington Overspenders
Rick, did you see “Zero Dark Thirty”? What did you think of it if yes.
Atlanta Braves?
I guess the word ‘braves’ isn’t as offensive as ‘redskins.’ Remember the big issue over the tomahawk chip? Supposedly that was offensive.
I think often Native ‘leadership’ howls over things that regular Indians could give a damn about.
I am not going to get all hysterical if they call me ‘pale face.’
There are a lot of Native American references that are not offensive. If the idea is to honor the first inhabitants of the region, find something from that culture and use it.
I am not so sure that many natives find it offensive. We have a few speaking for all.
The Redskins have been around as a team since the 1930s. 80 years should count for something. Its up to the owners.
I think Indians have way too many real things to worry about. Chiefs, Braves, Redskins, should be seen as an honor rather than all the hoopla.
They ought to be worrying about unemployment and poverty on reservations and alcoholism. Diabetes runs rampant. Many Indian children grow up in foster care and many kids are victims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Many simply don’t get a chance to graduate with any job skills because of unstable families.
When are they going to ask Indianapolis and INdiana to change their names?
I do think that Moon may have something here. Red Mesa High School in Arizona. Home of the Redskins. On a Navajo reservation, with a student body 99.3% Native American. The attitude there toward a name change? Sort of like: “Hey, fellers. We’ve got a lot more important things to think about out here on the res.”
Good find, Wolverine. They are absolutely the Red Mesa High Redskins–right there in the heart of Navajo land. I guess it isn’t all THAT offensive.
I try to be politically correct up to a point. I even said ‘Native American’ rather than ‘Indiana’ for a while. I used to always visit a reservation when I went west. The first time I did this I had a couple of natives laugh at me. They said the only people who said Native American were white people and that they were Indians. I stopped saying Native American. When in Rome…do as the Romans do.
I expect that if there were a name change in the picture, a whole bunch of Indians would be moaning and groaning over losing the ‘redskins’ name.
I would think it possible to worry about alcoholism and diabetes on the reservation and still find the term “Redskins” offensive. But it may not be particularly offensive to many or most Native Americans. I have no idea how the majority of them feel about it. As a European American, however, I think it is an artifact of a time when racial nomenclature was far more blunt and imprecise than is generally acceptable today. If there were no opposition from the Native American community, Mr. Snyder ought still to give serious consideration to finding a better name.
I object to the name “Minnesota Vikings” — especially when the state elects liberal TV comedians to the US Senate. Besides, I remember when those rats stole Harmon Killebrew (along with the rest of the old Washington Senators).
Yeah, change it to “Washington PC Protagonists”, that’ll work! Oh wait, we’d then be offending PC protagonists who don’t like football. Never mind!
I think I am on the side of the business owner here. Fans and all support this name and have done so for many years. It heaps on praise, no denigration.
You’re right. If it wasn’t for the name and other references the native American Indian would be all but forgotten.
“The Redskins have been around as a team since the 1930s.”
And, had a marked bigotry against black players for some of that time. The origins of the Redskins-Cowboys rivalry is that the Cowboys were quick to start using black players while the Redskins were keeping it white. That’s the proud history here.
I am certainly not saying that football in general isn’t without prejudiced. I expect the Redskins werent the only ones who didn’t play black players. Then there is the US military…..
What did I think of Zero Dark Thirty? Well as entertainment it was okay. Jessica Chastain was good in it.
As a supposed reniditon of history, it’s fake and misleading. The following is obvious to me, and even more obvious to anyone with intelligence background :
The last part of the film, which is the most entertaining, is the part that is presumably based on real background information. This is the raid on bin Laden’s hideout. It’s brutal – we basically lure towards us and slaughter any adult in that house who is a possible threat. If they had filmed the raid as they did without that being the way things happened, I assume there would have been an outcry. Presumably one or more members of the raiding party, the special ops soldiers, talked to the filmmakers.
The longer part of the movie, about the hunt for his hiding place, is phony unbelievable bs. I’m not offended by the way the film proposes that “torture” can yield real information. Maybe it can – though we’ve been told by everyone (save Dick Cheney) that it didn’t in this case. What offends me is that they invented this stuff wholesale, a decent if unexceptional “what if” fiction about how we tracked down bin Laden and then PRETENDED IT WAS BASED ON CLASSIFIED INFO and sat and watched mislead people arguing about the film’s veracity. The story isn’t real and doesn’t smell real to anyone who has a sense for the CIA. But they parlayed their “insider info” about the raid into a pretense that the earlier part of the film is based on leaked infol. It is extremely sleazy and misleading and fairly immoral, I think.
@Rick
I was confused at the end. I wasn’t aware we had assassinated so many people. My suspension of disbelief was not held.
I had a hard time with the torture scenes and I am not really sure I see the point of including it in that film. However, I watched it twice which I rarely do. It definitely left an impression on me.
I almost felt that killing Bin Laden was anticlimactic. Not sure I would have felt that way if the film had continued to the point of dumping his sorry arse in the deep.
Once again, ancient history! I guess we shouldn’t buy Japanese or German cars either, because of history. Get over IT for crap sakes! Enough whining.
I have a Native American friend and he and his family have NO problem with the name. They are all huge Skins fans. Personally, I don’t like the idea of a name change. PCness is the ruination of our country imo.
I agree with Second Alamo. I hope I don’t get struck by lightning. 🙂
You very well might get struck. So might he though.
As a point of interest, even though Second Alamo doesn’t want to hear it, some info on the Redskins’ legacy on race relations.
Owner George Marshall kept the Redskins all-white oin the late 50’s and early 60’s, when every other team had integrated. It was deliberate; he wanted to market the Redskins as the “team of the South” (they were, at the time, the Southernmost NFL team). Marshall’s personal bigotry and bigoted marketing paln were routinely mocked. Including by Cowboys fans who cooked up plans to release white and black chickens onto the field in DC (the “Cowboy Chicken Club”). The Federal Government actually pressured Marshall into including black players; unless he integrated they would not renew the lease on DC stadium in 1962. He drafted a black player with the team’s top pick that year, Ernie Davis, who said he wouldn’t play for “that SOB” Marshall. So they traded him for Bobby Mitchell, who became the first black Redskin.
“Marshall died in 1969. His will set up a charitable foundation but stipulated that none of its money would ever go toward “any purpose which supports the principle of racial integration in any form.”” (This was in relation to a 6 million dollar donation to the George Preston Marshall Foundation).
The Redskins-Cowboys rivalry happened in part because Marshall had fought against the Dallas team’s existence, wanting to be the Southernmost team, and they rooked him. They bought the rights to “Hail to the Redskins” and told him he couldn’t play it anymore. They gave him the song back if he would allow their admission into the league – it took unanimous approval and Marshall had been the only holdout.
You’ll see a lot of black Dallas Cowboys fans in the DC area. It’s not because they’re from Dallas. It’s because 52 years ago the Redskins stood publicly against integration, and the Cowboys were a rival.
This is the proud legacy of the “Redskins” … owned by a rich bigot who fought integration … yeah they probably should change the name.
That’s facinaating history. I still don’t think they should change the name, mainly because of longevity, unless they want to.
But it made for a very intestesting read.
I believe UMD was the first of the original ACC teams to integrate their athletics. Football was 1963 and 1965 for basketball. So in otherwords, in 1965 no ACC team, other than Maryland, and SCC had any integrated athletics. The Redskins weren’t the only ones.
I think Snyder is just holding out for some kind of political payoff. I’m sure it’s occurred to Dan Snyder that he’ll be able to boost merchandise sales when he changes the name. The team’s primary purpose is to sell jerseys, calendars, and advertising contracts.
Original lyrics to “Hail to the Redskins” :
(“DC” was changed to “Dixie” from 1959-61 when Marshall was most aggressively marketing the resdkins as the “team of the South”, then back to “DC”)
Hail to the Redskins
Hail Vic-tor-y
Braves on the Warpath
Fight for old Dixie
Scalp ’em, swamp ’em — We will take ’em big score
Read ’em, weep ’em, touchdown – we want heap more
Fight on, Fight on — ‘Till you have won
Sons of Wash-ing-ton. Rah!, Rah!, Rah!
Hail to the Redskins
Hail Vic-tor-y
Braves on the Warpath
Fight for old Dixie
So, come on now. Had Marshall named the team the pickaninnies or the chinks or some such thing, would we still be arguing about this?
No but I don’t but the term ‘redskin’ in the same category as ‘pickanninny’ or ‘chink’ and neither do most people. Those last two terms wouldnt have survived this long.
Now it they had been called the DC Fagggots, that would probably still be around.
Is any team called the Indians?
@Rick Bentley
Second Alamo, that story about “Hail To The Redskins” is true according to my memory too.
All I can say about this quandry is “GEAUX SAINTS!”
YES! The Cleveland Indians in MLB. I would add their mascot may be questionable to many.
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=cle
Y’all don’t see how “red skin” is inherently impolite at best?
If that were the case, why would the term ‘redskins’ be used for everything from Indian team mascots to turquoise mines to potatoes?
I couldn’t even convince anyone that the term ‘squaw’ was impolite.
The Redskins started out in Boston as the Braves and became the Redskins when they moved to Fenway Park in 1933, then moved to DC in 1937. There’s really no link to DC for the name, but that’s not unusual for sports teams.
As Rick Bentley has pointed out, the Redskins team has a horrible history in regards to racial discrimination, so the name fits in that regard. The term redskin is undoubtedly a racial slur, just like “squaw” or the “n” word or “jap” or “wop” or “chink” and on and on. All these terms were used by the dominant or conquering peoples to demean the subjugated people. The terms dehumanize and demean. Whether or not present day members of those subjugated groups understand or care about their past history doesn’t change it.
Having said all that, a lot of money rides on the Redskins team name, so I wouldn’t expect it to be changed easily. Snyder’s #1, #2 and #3 concern is money. Should it change? In a perfect world, yes. Will it? Probably not yet.
There is also degree….I can think of a few words that are used about women also. Those terms are demeaning also.
Some are worse than others.
Remember how hysterical some folks got over McCain using the word ‘gook’ He was a POW so I am sure the slip came ease to him.
I expect people my parents’ age will say Jap and kraut as long as they live. (my parents did)
From 1901 to 1965, the principal baseball franchise (high minor leagues) in Georgia was called the Atlanta Crackers. That was before the MLB Braves moved down from Milwaukee.
Nobody really knows how the Atlanta team got that name, but there seems to be some opinion that the term was used in reference to the rather boisterous and brash Irish and Scottish immigrants who settled in the rural back country of the Deep South. (Actually, the ante-bellum poor Irish were the next thing up the Southern societal totem pole from the Black slaves.)
Funny how things change. Back in the day, it appears that Georgians were not offended by the name, even used it with pride when cheering for the Atlanta team. Nowadays in the popular culture, however, it has a gained a racist connotation.
Funniest thing about the term ‘cracker’ at least when in Georgia. The Georgia Cracker was almost an icon. It was used lovely almost, by the natives. It was sort of like good ole boy, and a little less harsh than redneck. I never knew it was used as a racial slur until recent years. I don’t think it is still in Georgia. Supposedly the term cracker came from the mule skinners cracking their whips.
Steve Randolph? What say you?
In some recent seasons past this name would have been very appropriate.
According to Wikipedia, the term originated in Elizabethan England and referred to someone boastful. In the 1760’s, the English applied it to settlers in the Carolinas, Virginia Maryland and Georgia because of their supposedly boastful tendencies. It was later used to refer to the Georgia ranchers by Floridians because of the frequent use of the bull-whip by the Georgians (bull-whip “crack” when snapped). Later, of course, it was used by African-Americans to refer to certain whites.
So this one started out as a slur by a dominant group only to be adopted by the lesser group to identify themselves (there was even a “Cracker Party” political machine!) and then turned back into a slur by a different subjugated group!!
Another source of the rivelry is that Dallas was trying to bring a NFL team to their city – a deal was struck with Redskin owner Marshall. Marshall then tried to make changes and the Dallas buyer (Murchinson) became incensed and walked off. Shortly thereafter, The Redskins band director sold the rights of Hail to the Redskins to Murchinson which was used a leverage to allow the Cowboys into the league.
Interestingly enough, the band directors name was Breeskin.
And….what are Jacqualyn Redskin of Illinois, Rocky Redskin of Oregon, Della Redskin of Michigan and Kelly Redskin of Marland supposed to do about their names? Will they have to change, too?
…and what about redskin potatoes? What’re they supposed to do?