This Redskins name thing is ridiculous, the name was meant to honor Indians as beings great warriors. Same with most Indian names on sports teams. Get over it PC crowd.
So we should have sports team named “ni****s” to honour our great African-Americans? Taking a name that was, and is a racist slur doesn’t exactly honour a group. Using the name Redskins was never intended to honour native Americans, it was meant to appropriate an image of fierce warriors. It was meant to sound scary.
How about re-naming them the Rednecks? It won’t offend anyone (just ask Jeff Foxworthy) and it does refer to red skin, just on one part of the body of course but that should satisfy everyone, and Randy Newman already wrote the team song called Rednecks. So let’s vote: is there anything anybody objects to in the name, “The Washington Rednecks?”
The team has been called the “Redskins” since 1932 and nobody has complained until now.Thinking about the name, and placing the name in context with the time the name was chosen… would the owners have picked “Redskins” if the name was in any way derogatory? I think not.As of today, 82 years later, “Redskins” is a name synonymous with a football team.
How about a nationwide ballot sent out to Natives who are also registered voters so THEY can decide. since it’s the Natives who are being depicted?
BTW, there’s a high school in Alaska whose teams are called the Aniak Halfbreeds. The name was voted in by the students, who are predominantly Native. If they’re not insulted, I’m not insulted.
Couldn’t care less one way or the other about the name, but doesn’t Daniel Snyder strike anyone else as having received one wedgie too many growing up?
GuiltyBystander: Sounds like an act of protest to me! “We know how you treat us, but we don’t have the power to do any more than to tell you we know.” I am no only with you, I am one of you – as are most Americans. Hybrid vigor, you know.
I remember watching Dennis Prager on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder. He said, how about naming a baseball team, The Jews. Can you imagine if they were in first place and 50,000 people yelling, “Go, Jews”!
To those trying to suggest changing the Redskins’ name is PC run amok (or is somehow justified by the fact it’s been that for a long time) – try using it on some native Americans. Maybe “Hey redskin, how’s it hanging down at the tipi?”, and see how honoured and flattered they feel. I going to bet it’s just about as welcome and as much an “honor” as it would be for a white guy to call an African American “nigger”. I’m going to bet neither one welcomes the slur – for such both are, and have always been.
gladiator85: Rochester was a stereotype character; not as a black servant, but the stereotype of the servant who knows more than the master. Moliere use that stereotype too, and they were definitely white..Those wanting to ban Huck, I submit, oppose Huck’s regard of Jim as human. They think if they lived in those days, they would be wealthy slaveowners. Actually, then as now, they are some rich guy’s slaves, doing what he says.
jonesb over 10 years ago
This Redskins name thing is ridiculous, the name was meant to honor Indians as beings great warriors. Same with most Indian names on sports teams. Get over it PC crowd.
charlie over 10 years ago
Why not change the mascot to a potato? Nothing racist about ordering redskin potatoes.
wallylm over 10 years ago
Question isn’t whether I or you care about these sports team names, it’s whether they do. That’s not being PC, it’s being democratic.
Greg Johnston over 10 years ago
So we should have sports team named “ni****s” to honour our great African-Americans? Taking a name that was, and is a racist slur doesn’t exactly honour a group. Using the name Redskins was never intended to honour native Americans, it was meant to appropriate an image of fierce warriors. It was meant to sound scary.
loner34 over 10 years ago
PC is going to bring this great country down.
StCleve72 over 10 years ago
How about re-naming them the Rednecks? It won’t offend anyone (just ask Jeff Foxworthy) and it does refer to red skin, just on one part of the body of course but that should satisfy everyone, and Randy Newman already wrote the team song called Rednecks. So let’s vote: is there anything anybody objects to in the name, “The Washington Rednecks?”
bwalk7217 Premium Member over 10 years ago
The team has been called the “Redskins” since 1932 and nobody has complained until now.Thinking about the name, and placing the name in context with the time the name was chosen… would the owners have picked “Redskins” if the name was in any way derogatory? I think not.As of today, 82 years later, “Redskins” is a name synonymous with a football team.
Guilty Bystander over 10 years ago
How about a nationwide ballot sent out to Natives who are also registered voters so THEY can decide. since it’s the Natives who are being depicted?
BTW, there’s a high school in Alaska whose teams are called the Aniak Halfbreeds. The name was voted in by the students, who are predominantly Native. If they’re not insulted, I’m not insulted.
paul GROSS Premium Member over 10 years ago
Exactly. Practically nobody paid attention to the words original meaning until it was deemed offensive.
phoenixnyc over 10 years ago
Couldn’t care less one way or the other about the name, but doesn’t Daniel Snyder strike anyone else as having received one wedgie too many growing up?
hippogriff over 10 years ago
GuiltyBystander: Sounds like an act of protest to me! “We know how you treat us, but we don’t have the power to do any more than to tell you we know.” I am no only with you, I am one of you – as are most Americans. Hybrid vigor, you know.
lapopessa over 10 years ago
Do what I’ve done since I moved to DC in 1980 and began going to games. Call them the ‘skins. It’s what most of us call them anyhow.
K M over 10 years ago
PC running amok again. Will it ever end!?
Jim Kerner over 10 years ago
I remember watching Dennis Prager on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder. He said, how about naming a baseball team, The Jews. Can you imagine if they were in first place and 50,000 people yelling, “Go, Jews”!
Greg Johnston over 10 years ago
To those trying to suggest changing the Redskins’ name is PC run amok (or is somehow justified by the fact it’s been that for a long time) – try using it on some native Americans. Maybe “Hey redskin, how’s it hanging down at the tipi?”, and see how honoured and flattered they feel. I going to bet it’s just about as welcome and as much an “honor” as it would be for a white guy to call an African American “nigger”. I’m going to bet neither one welcomes the slur – for such both are, and have always been.
hippogriff over 10 years ago
gladiator85: Rochester was a stereotype character; not as a black servant, but the stereotype of the servant who knows more than the master. Moliere use that stereotype too, and they were definitely white..Those wanting to ban Huck, I submit, oppose Huck’s regard of Jim as human. They think if they lived in those days, they would be wealthy slaveowners. Actually, then as now, they are some rich guy’s slaves, doing what he says.