Should the Washington Redskins Change Their Team Name?

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Toppy Vann
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Not personal but in your diatribe of twisting others views on this you completely alter the points authors make and you do attack directly the posts of others - not just mine.

Bruchac - an expert says sports team/place names are more complex - yes - not what you suggest but carry on with your crusade to condemn all overs with a slightly different view.
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For those interested, here's a Wikipedia piece I ran across that clarifies a number of points involved in this issue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redskin_%28slang%29
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http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter. ... -24_pr.pdf

Study after study in the USA shows the Indians don't care much for this issue but it cost the Nepean minor football association $150,000 recently to change their name due to minimal protesting.

Political correctness gone too far.
Most Indians Say Name of Washington “Redskins” Is Acceptable
While 9 Percent Call It Offensive, Annenberg Data Show

Most American Indians say that calling Washington’s professional football team the “Redskins”
does not bother them, the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey
shows.

Ninety percent of Indians took that position, while 9 percent said they found the name
“offensive.” One percent had no answer. The margin of sampling error for those findings was
plus or minus two percentage points.

From Wiki origin of the name:
The term is most prominent in the name of the Washington Redskins, a National Football League football team. The team was founded in 1932 and was originally known as the Boston Braves, for their landlords, the baseball team called the Boston Braves. In 1933 the name was changed to the synonymous Boston Redskins when the team left Braves Field for Fenway Park, the home of the Boston Red Sox. Some accounts state that the name "Redskins" was chosen to honor the team's coach, William "Lone Star" Dietz, who began coaching in 1933, and whose mother was allegedly Sioux. In 1937 the team moved and joining Capitol Hill as the second football team of Washington, D.C., became the Washington Redskins.[46]
For me this is vastly more important for native peoples in both Canada and the USA and we sure know in Canada that the issues of First Nations people are vastly worse than what's in a name of a sports team. This from Penn State prof Marge Bruchac on use of names sums it up for me:
The real issue for American Indian people today, across America, is not just words and mascots, but the forging of new relationships based on mutual respect and understanding, in traditional homelands, beyond the stereotypes. And the more pressing issues, of adequate food, housing, shelter, and opportunity, will not be served by attacking traditional languages in the name of political correctness.

A more useful resolution of place names issues would be one that acknowledges and enforces respect for indigenous peoples and languages. Before we erase names, we must erase misunderstandings. How do we rename every "Squaw Rock," without forgetting the history? One way is to reclaim the original language. "Squaw Peak" might become "Ktsioskwa," "great woman," or another appropriate name chosen by the indigenous people.
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Interesting piece here in a Massachusetts newspaper. It contains interesting information about the first owner of the team, George Preston Marshall, who named them the "Redskins." Seems he was forced by President Kennedy to allow black players on the team in 1962, 16 years after all other NFL teams had integrated. "Until then, Marshall had reveled in owning professional football's last segregated team, famously announcing, 'We'll start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.'"

Interesting too is the action taken by the American Psychological Association (the principal organization entrusted with the oversight, evaluation, and publication of the top tier of research in Psychology) in 2005 based on some empirical research (instead of speculation and false claims): "Citing the impact on children, the American Psychological Association in 2005 passed a resolution calling for the immediate retirement of American Indian mascots, team names and symbols. The resolution cited several studies concluding that such symbols 'have a negative impact on the self-esteem of American Indian children.'"

http://baystatebanner.com/news/2013/oct ... st-battle/
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First they get the Redskins then move on to the others and I see the Seattle Seahawks that SP has no issue with up top on this guy's list in his push for this. None other Professor Ned Blackhawk takes aim a lot of the teams in the USA. Where does this end!!! But he has a very valid point or two if you accept his rationale. Bottom line anything that reflects an ethnic group is not acceptable.


http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1151 ... -and-logos

Names in Sports: A Definitive Ranking

How Racist Is Your Sports Team?
Washington, D.C.'s football squad is hardly the only sports team with an offensive name and/or logo derived from Native American culture. How does your team compare?

In some instances (like Washington), the name is accompanied by an equally offensive logo. In others, teams have attempted to neuter negative associations. But this isn’t an argument for letting the lesser offenders slide. Rather, recognizing the different ways teams exploit Native American culture lets us appreciate the problem with doing it at all. Most of the names, explains Ned Blackhawk, a Yale professor who specializes in Native American history and law, “come out of a period largely in the mid-twentieth century when the federal government was in the process of assimilating or ‘terminating’ the tribes. They reflect a larger governmental and racial atmosphere in America that did not see these tribes as constituents in the future of the republic.”

Here's a subjective taxonomy—roughly ranked from the least to most offensive—of how professional and Division I teams exploit Native American culture in ways that wouldn’t be deemed acceptable if done to any other culture with that history of oppression.

Seattle Seahawks (NFL
St. John’s Red Storm (Division I):

Iowa Hawkeyes (Division I):
Golden State Warriors (NBA):

Illinois Fighting Illini (Division I):

Central Michigan Chippewas, University of Utah Utes and Florida State Seminoles (Division I):

William & Mary Tribe, Alcorn State Braves, and Bradley Braves (Division I):

Atlanta Braves (MLB):

Chicago Blackhawks (NHL).

Kansas City Chiefs (NFL):

San Diego State University Aztecs (

Washington Football Team (NFL):

Cleveland Indians (MLB):
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Interesting who is pushing this issue the hardest. Rich, powerful lobbyists with a lot of cash due to a casino. Friend of Obama's runs this outfit and has become rich. This tribe gave $10 to a the museum for American Independence yet did not see fit to help other tribes suffering as their gambling hasn't worked out well. Run by a virtual rich dictator. Yet they haven't yet paid taxes to the state of NY but can fun ads attacking the Redskins in Washington... a ways from home.

They couldn't get the Oneida city fire dept with people dying in the blaze to come so they built their own casino for 900 folks. Hmm gambling is worse than this name issue!

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... s_own.html
Casinos Not Paying Off for Indians
S A N C A R L O S, Ariz., Aug. 31

The Oneida Indian Nation in central New York has become the largest employer in Oneida and Madison counties, thanks to a casino that’s generating more than $100 million in annual revenues. A championship golf course and convention center are under construction.
Oneida Indian Nation is the tiny tribe taking on the NFL and Dan Snyder over Redskins name

The multimillion-dollar Turning Stone Resort Casino, about 30 miles east of Syracuse, transformed the Oneida Indian Nation from a tribe unable to save its own members into a financial and political powerhouse willing to take on the National Football League and the billionaire owner of Washington’s football team on behalf of Native Americans.

How a 900-member tribe in central New York came to wage a fight to pressure the Washington Redskins to change its name is, in many ways, an American success story. But it is also one fraught with internal dissension, bitter legal battles and decades of controversy, much of it centered on Halbritter, a Harvard-educated former iron worker respected by many and reviled by others.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/one ... story.html

In addition to an animation company and the Indian Country Today Media Network, the tribe owns a chain of gas stations, with convenience stores that sell cigarettes the Oneidas manufacture — free of state taxes. It also has become a political player, spending more than $3.2 million on lobbying and making $257,000 in political contributions between 2005 and mid-2012, according to a Common Cause/NY report. Last year, Halbritter donated $5,000 to Obama’s reelection campaign and almost $31,000 to the Republican National Committee.
But what do the tribe folks get from their dictator for all this:
But his critics say not all Oneidas have flourished alongside him. Tribe members tell of receiving stipends of $16,000 a year, but only if Halbritter approves them.

“If you engage in what Halbritter considers an act of dissent or ask for an accounting audit of what the casino makes, then you’re systematically stripped of all of your membership,” said Doug George-Kanentiio, the co-founder of the Native American Journalists Association who is married to Halbritter’s first cousin, Grammy-award-winning singer Joanne Shenandoah. “He answers to no one,” he added.
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This, folks, is a seahawk (also known as an osprey), the team name for the Seattle football team (similar to the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles), and found near sea water all over North America, including the Northwest, thus making it a natural (and certainly non-racist) name choice for a Seattle sports team.

Image

Edit: OK; it's dawned on me why the Seahawks were mentioned at all in the piece above (although I should note that the Seattle example was not at the top of the authors list as claimed, but rather at the bottom--i.e., least offensive--since the list was given in ascending order from least offensive to most). Its the logo. Here it is as it has evolved over the years:

Image

The name "Seahawks" was chosen via a fan poll (like the BC Lions team name). The suits who were preparing to field the first edition of the team decided to use a stylized logo--based on coastal Native American art. Thus, if anything, it would be a respectful tribute to the Native Indians living in the Pacific Northwest, and anything but an insult. The seahawk is not a sacred animal in the Native Indian culture. Various discussions of this design by Native Indian artists indicate that it's not exactly the way it would have been done by some of them, but they go on to note that most Native art is a mixture of true Native themes and designs with non-Native touches. The logo is, however, true to the Native tradition.

And here's a piece that points out why the Seahawk logo is inoffensive to Native Americans:

http://newspaperrock.bluecorncomics.com ... pical.html

In particular:

"...To prepare for this event, Kevin Gover asked me the following:
A thought. None of us [Native Americans] seem to be offended by the Seattle Seahawks logo. Clearly it is based in northwest Native design. Does this mean that the respectful, non-stereotypical use of Native imagery is inoffensive? If so, suppose Washington renamed its football team the "Americans" and used some Native symbol (say, an eagle feather) as its logo. Would that be ok? I'm just trying to find some markers we can use when talking about this subject.
...

...On to your question. Is the respectful, non-stereotypical use of Native imagery inoffensive? I'd say yes. In the Seahawks' case, the logo isn't a chief, a deity, or a sacred animal. It's a non-sacred animal done in a Pacific Northwest style. Assuming someone has done due diligence, it should be okay.

(Due diligence means making sure no one holds the seahawk sacred, and the art is done according to tradition.)"

A pretty far cry from the use of racial slur for a team name....
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I posted that list and Seahawks according to Ned Blackhawk is one he deems bad. And again, SP you never, ever fail to twist things. Seahawks at the bottom of the list...always making a BS point and missing the plot as usual. The list is what this native American professor feels are misuses of native symbols and post all the birds you want - it doesn't cut if a group starts the ball rolling and takes offense.

The Oneida Nation started this latest thing with the Redskins - deep pockets - money to buy $38,000 tickets to Obama's events but a mere $16,000 to tribe members just to illustrate how this thing could go on and on with all these other teams being hounded.

And yes the owner of the Redskins was a racist and you might be surprised but if you dig into the archives of the Sun and Province and the Lions back in the 50s you'll find that a HC was deemed to a bit of a racist too. Those were the times.

My point is that the Redskins name is not alone as an issue with a small, small minority of people.

I think as Marge Bruchac - another native prof says - use these as educational opportunities.

Meanwhile they are showing Geronimo again on TCM and I got to watch how they are portraying these evil savages doing far more damage to the misperceptions of the native Americans than the Redskins name ever will.
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I went to school with Ned Blackhawk. Good guy. Liked his sports.
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Tighthead wrote:I went to school with Ned Blackhawk. Good guy. Liked his sports.
:thup: Well he has a fitting name to do that write up. Was this at McGill or ?

His academic accomplishments and publications are vast and significant. You know a very bright scholar.


http://history.yale.edu/people/ned-blackhawk
Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) is a Professor of History and American Studies at Yale and was on the faculty from 1999 to 2009 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. A graduate of McGill University, he holds graduate degrees in History from UCLA and the University of Washington and is the author of Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the early American West (Harvard, 2006), a study of the American Great Basin that garnered half a dozen professional prizes, including the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize from the Organization of American Historians.
DIVERSE
http://diverseeducation.com/?emerging-s ... the-making

“I ended up in Montreal at McGill University,” he says. “It was one of the craziest and best decisions of my youth. I literally arrived on campus without a place to stay since I had mistakenly assumed that all freshmen received dorm assignments as they did in the United States.”

Though he initially set his studies on international relations, Blackhawk found himself drawn closer to history. “Over time I came to see history as a politicized subject, and I became particularly aware of the absence of indigenous people and their history in Canada and the United States,” he says.

This issue of indigenous history became a living reality for Blackhawk when two Quebec Mohawk communities resisted the development of a golf course on their ancient burial grounds. The Oka Crisis, as history recalls it, was a military standoff that lasted 78 days during the summer of 1990. Eventually, the Mohawk prevailed and the golf course was never developed. Watching Mohawk history collide with the present had a deep impact on Blackhawk’s sense of Native identity and pride. And in the years since he has come to understand the need for greater inclusion of indigenous histories in the classroom because misunderstandings and conflicts between Native people and Whites are not issues of the past.
“Blackhawk’s ability to interpret the web of social relations among Native peoples, military power, and European encroachment in North America is superb, and offers important insights on the complex and often tragic history of indigenous people,” Marquez says.

With a wife and two children, Blackhawk has come full circle in realizing that his research is making needed impressions on his students. “I try to challenge people’s perceived understandings about American history, and expose students and readers to the cycles of change and disruption that accompanied European settlement and expansion in North America. Indians are, of course, central to such a reassessment.”
[/quote]

In another talk he had this to say on red skin (see below). What I don't see is how the conclusion here that the term "red skin" confirms in peoples' minds natives are inferior to Americans. To me it suggests that the name about the best attributes but Blackhawk in the first article referring to him says that is not right to do either. Now I do agree with the chop chop stuff being a bit on the racist side.

A complex issue for sure that I believe better education and discussion of these issues should overcome! In BC for example the First Nations were screwed and the reserves never gave them a chance. Cole Harris, former UBC geog. prof gave a talk at the Van Institute I attended and he showed what was planned for natives in BC versus what was given and he concluded they were doomed from that as it was not sustainable to give the population a life. Granted the City of Kamloops would be in that reserve territory IIRC.

Reflections on Ned Blackhawk’s “Indigenous Reckoning”: Native American History’s Place in U.S. Historiography

http://umasshistory.wordpress.com/2013/ ... riography/

Or if you enjoy sports, one can discuss the modern implications of having a national football team named the Washington Redskins. The image of a Native American in traditional garb and the term “Red Skin” seems to freeze the American Indian into a static mold in which he is still a prehistoric nomad. It its evident that the legacy of indigenous peoples has been engrained in our national history — in both writing and rhetoric — as inferior to “Americans.”

In 2002 he organized this event it seems - or helped to:
http://www.aics.org/NCRSM/wiconference.html

American Indian Mascot Teach-In and Protest
Friday, March 22, 2002
4:00 PM Teach-In
Multicultural Student Center
Red Gym and Armory

5:30 Rally at Kohl Center

Please read the press release below for more information:

American Indians Protest Illinois Mascot at NCAA Midwest Regionals
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Ned Blackhawk,

The Madison Indian community has deep concerns about the offensive caricatures of Native peoples in popular culture, particularly within the nation’s educational system.
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Toppy Vann wrote:I posted that list and Seahawks according to Ned Blackhawk is one he deems bad. And again, SP you never, ever fail to twist things. Seahawks at the bottom of the list...always making a BS point and missing the plot as usual.
Jeez, TV, are you really as thick as you seem? Here is the list verbatim exactly as you presented it:
_____________________________________________________________________

"Here's a subjective taxonomy—roughly ranked from the least to most offensive—of how professional and Division I teams exploit Native American culture in ways that wouldn’t be deemed acceptable if done to any other culture with that history of oppression.[bold italics mine]

Seattle Seahawks (NFL
St. John’s Red Storm (Division I):

Iowa Hawkeyes (Division I):
Golden State Warriors (NBA):

Illinois Fighting Illini (Division I):

Central Michigan Chippewas, University of Utah Utes and Florida State Seminoles (Division I):

William & Mary Tribe, Alcorn State Braves, and Bradley Braves (Division I):

Atlanta Braves (MLB):

Chicago Blackhawks (NHL).

Kansas City Chiefs (NFL):

San Diego State University Aztecs (

Washington Football Team (NFL):

Cleveland Indians (MLB):"
________________________________________________________________

Do you really not understand that "ranked from the least to most offensive" means that the first item on the list IS THE LEAST OFFENSIVE? In case you can't figure that out, TV, THAT MEANS THAT IN TERMS OF OFFENSIVENESS, THAT FIRST-LISTED ITEM (THE SEAHAWKS) IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LIST OF OFFENSIVENESS.

Migod, I just can't believe this. Is this some kind of dumb act, or is it that you just throw stuff out without actually reading it?

And you're complete missing of the point in the Marge Bruchac piece. Let me try once more to explain to you what she was advocating. It's completely clear from the following paragraph from the passage you posted:

"Any word can hurt when used as a weapon. Banning the word will not erase the past, and will only give the oppressors power to define our language. What words will be next? Pappoose? Sachem? Pow Wow? If we accept the slander, and internalize the insult, we discredit our female ancestors who felt no shame at hearing the word spoken. To ban indigenous words discriminates against Native people and their languages. Are we to be condemned to speaking only the "King's English?" What about all the words from other Native American languages?"

Do you know what "indigenous words" are, TV. Probably not, so let me explain: they are words spoken by the indigenous people (Native Americans in this case). Now, can you understand that "Redskin" is NOT, I repeat NOT, an indigenous word?

Also, TV, do you want us to believe that you believe that a wrong should not be righted because there are other wrongs out there, and why focus on just this one? By that logic, I guess you thought that, since genocide was going on in Rwanda, we shouldn't bother doing something since it was also going on in South Sudan, so why single out Rwanda. LOL

And again with the irrelevance: "they are showing Geronimo again..." So, your point again seems to be that since this portrayal of Native Americans is bad, we should forget about other instances of linguistic mistreatment of Native Americans.

I can't believe it....
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Toppy Vann
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SP .. you twist everything to discredit others posts and I'm not going to let you keep doing it to me.

CONTEXT or have you heard of that.

Anyone with half a brain if they click on it sees that Seahawks is at the top of the list BUT - give readers some freaking credit - they 'd see immediately that this list builds to the most egregious. But what you do is to try to discredit the views of others by suggesting that I somehow am trying to spin that the Seahawks on that list were the worst. You are sinister in your attacks to try to discredit others whose views might differ from yours.

I noted the Seahawks - as you are a fan of them as are others here - so that others might see the Redskins are just ONE of their targets.

You are a waste of time.

You can do that to others as you wish, but I'll not let you do that to me.
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Toppy Vann wrote:Anyone with half a brain you'd see that Seahawks is at the top of the list BUT give readers some freaking credit - they 'd see immediately that this list builds to the most egregious. But what you do is to try to discredit the views of others by suggesting that I somehow am trying to spin that the Seahawks on that list were the worst.
Yes, most readers can see that, but, instead you twisted it so that it seemed that the author was portraying the Seahawks as the worst in this regard. Here are your words:

"First they get the Redskins then move on to the others and I see the Seattle Seahawks that SP has no issue with up top on this guy's list in his push for this." (Bold italics mine) "Top of the list" generally and to most readers means "most exceptionally."

So now you're going to claim that by noting that the Seahawks were "top on this guy's list" you really meant that they represented the least egregious example of Native American stereotyping. Nice try, TV, but that's just weaselly on your part. How about you man up and admit that you were being disingenuous?
Toppy Vann wrote:I also noted Seahawks so that others might see the Redskins are just ONE of their targets.
Right, TV! But you note that they are "up top on this guy's list in his push for this," purposely misstating what the author intended.
Toppy Vann wrote:You are a waste of time.
Precisely my feeling about you, sir. So...why don't you take the advice I proposed just a few posts back? Let's not reply to each other's posts. Seems to me like a good resolution of our differences.
Last edited by South Pender on Sat Nov 30, 2013 9:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Sorry, double post.
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