In 1962, DC’s Football team became the final NFL team to integrate. When the team made the decision to allow black athletes on their team, the American Nazi Party had a demonstration in order to try to “keep their Redskins white”. Fast forward 50-years, and the team still seems to be behind the times. Despite many protests, Redskins owner Dan Snyder, has consistently refused to change his team’s name, which many people of all races consider derogatory and inappropriate. It is for this reason that Gregg Deal, a Washington, DC based Native American artist and activist,  considers the argument that the football team’s name is “tradition”  absolutely invalid and thinks that it is insulting to compare the team’s tradition with the much-longer standing tradition of Native Americans,  he says, “Indigenous people’s ideas and traditions have been in place for much longer than the little, sad, 80-year history of the Washington football team”, adding that most fans wouldn’t want their team’s tradition to be linked with the events in 1962.

The team’s name was changed from Braves to Redskins in 1933 to honor former coach Lone Star Dietz, who claimed that he was part Sioux. However, in 2004, Indian County Today Media Network ran a series of articles that proved that Dietz was in reality white. Ardent Redskins fan and WIS science teacher Kusum Wagle is one of many fans who is unclear on how the name came about and what it’s significance is “I don’t think most people know [the history of name] (…) I don’t think it was meant to be offensive to anybody or racist to anyone (…) but, I don’t know the true picture of the origin of the name”. Despite thinking that the name was not originally intended to be racist, she understands how times have changed, and at this point, there is no real reason to keep the name “if anybody is truly offended by it, then, yes, change the name”, says Wagle.

The term “Redskin” originates from a time when, as Deal says, “Indigenous people were hunted down for a bounty. These bounty hunters would be paid to provide trophies to prove that they were killed. (…) Those trophies came from scalps, like genitalia, or actual skin from the backside of a human being”. Though many believed that Native Americans were the perpetrators of scalping, recent studies by historians have shown that the Native Americans were originally victims, and that they only started to scalp themselves as revenge. So, even though the origin of the name may not have been intended to offend the word itself definitely was and that matters. The history of the word should be enough to convince Snyder to change the name.

Snyder and legendary Redskins coach Joe Gibbs have been two of the most vocal supporters of the name, and both of their arguments stem from the fact that they were Redskin fans growing up and that they will never give up on the team’s tradition. They both consider the name a very large part of this tradition. Although Wagle admits that she “respects [Gibbs] and would like to know his reasons for it”, she also points out that “When they mean tradition they mean tradition of the Redskin franchise (…) It’s not with the name that I’m attached, it’s with the team.” Recently, many other teams, including 41 prominent colleges, who used to have Native American team names have changed names. Supporters of keeping Native American names argued that the financial impact of changing names would be too steep to afford. However, a study conducted by the Emory University Goizueta Business School in December 2013, showed that the unpopularity of Native American mascots led these teams to bring in less money than teams with other mascots. The Redskins are still among the most profitable teams in the NFL due to their enormous popularity, but their revenue is currently decreasing by $1.6 million per year.

Even though there are other teams with Native American mascots, the controversy has surrounded the Redskins, because the name is a racial slur. Many sports media members, such as Sports Illustrated’s Peter King have stopped using the name. 99designs launched a contest to see which fan could create the best new name for the Redskins. Upper School English teacher Catherine Bell thinks that’s it’s awful “that having been made aware of the insult that goes with this, the owner of the team insists upon keeping the name”. Everyone seems to be getting the message. Except for Snyder.

By Blaise Malley