The Official ES All Things Redskins Name Change Thread (Reboot Edition---Read New OP)

[grego]

Redskin fans must be well behaved since there is no video footage whatsoever of fans clashing with protesters at these games unlike Cardinals fans insulting Michael Brown protesters.

 

or theres no video footage of any clash because there were no protesters at fed ex?

[burgundyrush]

never?

[grego]

never?

 

 

well, there were 6 last year. folks from a group called 'casa', then one or two people from the PG county chapter of the naa colored people. no native americans, though, at that one. they were inside getting honored for military service. 

 

but, havent heard any reports of any protesters last night, which i find highly unusual, given that this is obviously a huge issue in the native american community. 

 

i'm sure there was a big protest. it just hasnt come out in the news yet. 

[SWFLSkins]

Redskins Pride ‏@skinznation  4m4 minutes ago

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002194.html … The Scalp theory debunked

[RedskinsFan44]

 

Redskins Pride ‏@skinznation  4m4 minutes ago

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002194.html … The Scalp theory debunked

 

 

I love how he debunks it as a lie but then says that he's ok with that because the ends justify the means.

[grego]

I love how he debunks it as a lie but then says that he's ok with that because the ends justify the means.

 

ya i saw that too. nice of him.

 

another hostile witness, like adam clymer from annenberg-against the name, but supports the arguments in favor of keeping the name. 

 

this guys work is interesting. he argued on behalf of harjo that the name was derogatory. reading his work,  it seems he only had to show that the term 'could be' derogatory when it was trademarked in 1967 -even if it wasnt in 1932, which i find very interesting. 

 

he doesnt seem to acknowledge that the term was coined by natives, but says it doesnt matter anyway (which i can at least understand). seems to think that if the word has been used as a slur, then it should be done away with. 

[VinnyIsThatYou?]

Actually, the subject has been brought up hundreds of times in this thread.  Various posters have given their input on what the team should be named if there were a change. 

 

I have to tell (and I don't mean to single you our and I hope you don't take this personally, but) you that of all the names people have come up with, this is the one that I despise the most.  I hate it because of 2 things:

 

1. It sounds like a damn european soccer team name.  We aren't a part of MLS or the Barclays Premier League.  Worst idea ever.  It has no meaning, it has no excitement, it has nothing.  It's blah, it's terrible. I'd rather be called the Washington Assholes.

 

2. It's pompous.  I mean, just the mere mention of it, makes me think of a fan going around with his nose in the air saying, "oh you're team is Broncos?  What a smelly, droll animal.  My team is the "Football Club of Washington."  Now pass me the grey poupon you cretin." 

 

Just no. We've had to endure the cartoon mascot change know as the Wizards, please don't do that to the Redskins. To me its not an option.

 

Again, no my question was not answered, which I repeated in the follow up post. The question was concerning NFL bylaws, not if the suggestion ever came up or if it would be popular. Specifically: Is "Washington Football Club" a legal NFL name, or are there bylaws that state every team must have an independent team name?

I think Washington Redtails is more of a cartoon mascot and equivalent to Wizards than Washington Football Club. In any case, my preference is to have a tribe endorse the team name and to adopt that into the actual name (e.g.; Washington Potomac Redskins, which would be condensed to Washington Redskins in common speech, akin to New York Football Giants).

 

My original question is still relevant and still stands, and I'd like to hear if someone actually knows anything about it.

[Larry]

Again, no my question was not answered, which I repeated in the follow up post. The question was concerning NFL bylaws, not if the suggestion ever came up or if it would be popular. Specifically: Is "Washington Football Club" a legal NFL name, or are there bylaws that state every team must have an independent team name?

I doubt that you can find anyone who can authoritatively tell you if there is some rule requiring a certain kind of name.

But I would bet that an owner, and the NFL, can do pretty much whatever they want. Maybe the league owners get to vote whether to allow it or not.

[PCS]

Looks like that was a good bet Larry. After a very quick search,I found this on wiki. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Patriots

 

 

 

The following year, the Patriots moved to a new stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which would serve as their home for 30 years. As a result of the move, they announced they would change their name from the Boston Patriots to the Bay State Patriots. The name was rejected by the NFL and on March 23, 1971, the team officially announced they would become the New England Patriots.

[VinnyIsThatYou?]

Boss

 

I was driving from Victoria BC to, ironically enough, DC for a friends wedding in June '93. We stopped in Missoula MT for coffee and toast at a coffee shop around 6:30-7am.

 

We walked in, 1 Native American 1 Metis (mix of French and NA) and a Caribbean African Canadian, and the place literally ground to a halt when we walked in. Hustle and bustle to dead silence in no time at all.

 

Waitress says to me, "Maybe you two ****ing redskins should leave, and take your "n-word" with you"

 

Unfortunately, this is what makes this such a hard issue to deal with as Redskins fans. I have no idea if you are making this up or not, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility and that makes it relevant.

 

I've never heard redskin used as a slur in real life, but I've also never lived in an area with a significant NA community. I've talked to friends from South Dakota who told me that redskin was not a slur people used against NAs there, and heard the slurs they were familiar with which all seemed more degrading than redskin. But I totally realize that's anecdotal and only concerns one area, and I also realize it's not for me to say what's more degrading.

 

To me, redskin is not equivalent to other racial slurs because society appears to have largely accepted it as a pronoun to refer to a NFL team. If it was, it wouldn't be uttered at all on cable or broadcast TV. When people hear "Redskins" I tend to believe they immediately think of a NFL football team and not a group of people. At the same time, I don't want to minimize the impact it has had on people when it's been used to degrade them, and that's what makes this such a hard thing to debate.

And I was kind of indirectly answering your question of "why" the word is offensive to me. Not to you personally, but that has been a consistent theme in your posts.

 

 

Serious question for you.

 

If hypothetically a regional Mid-Atlantic NA tribe officially endorsed the team, and that tribe was incorporated into the official team name, would that change anything for you? To make that clear, if the Patawomeck / Potomac tribe endorsed the Washington team, and they became the Washington Potomac Redskins, would that make the use of Redskins tolerable in your mind? 

[s0crates]

Now that the season is in full swing, and folks are rocking Redskins gear on Sundays, has anyone experienced people coming up to you / talking to you about the name thing? Like other fans, good or bad, asking you "what do you think about the name?". I haven't noticed this much, but then again, I've pretty much watched all games at home so far. Just curious if anyone is seeing a wave of non-Redskins fan bring up the name thing when y'all are out n' about.

That's usually one of the first questions I get.

My answer is usually some version of, "I think they should change it, but they won't do so willingly."

Sometimes I try to explain what the team meant to the community when I was growing up.

[Destino]

Not sure if this has been posted yet but Deadspin has another big McKenna article.  This one claiming Mark One Wolf is a fraud. 
 

Mark One Wolf was, for a time, a favored native in Dan Snyder's fight to save the "Redskins" nickname. "Native American backing team name is VIP at practice," read a Richmond Times-Dispatch headline. It was accompanied by an Associated Press photo of One Wolf in profile, as if to echo the team's logo. But that was July. Now folks on both sides of the squabble agree on one thing: One Wolf makes poor Liz Warren look like Pocahontas.
 
"He is the 21st-century version of William 'Lone Star' Dietz," says Toby Vanlandingham, an anti-name activist from the Yurok Reservation in California. Dietz was the former Redskins coach whose reputed Sioux heritage inspired the team's nickname, according to the save-the-name camp, even though most evidence available today suggests he was neither Indian nor the inspiration.
 
"Mark One Wolf is a ****ing phony," says ReGina Zuni, an ardent pro-namer living on the Isleta Pueblo reservation in New Mexico. Zuni says she's so convinced that One Wolf's not really an Indian that she emailed the team to warn them to stay away from him, lest they get caught using another—yes, another—poseur.

http://deadspin.com/is-the-redskins-vip-indian-defender-a-fake-indian-1642991295

 

Please tell me the team didn't prop up another fake Native American in defense of the team name. 

[Larry]

Please tell me the team didn't prop up another fake Native American in defense of the team name.

Pointing out that the supposed first one was not a "fake Native American". Although it certainly seems that his credentials were, like Mary Twain's death "greatly exaggerated".

He apparently goes by the nickname "Chief", and it looks like the Redskins PR team grabbed that name and ran with it, claiming him to actually be the leader of a tribe.

And he is not 100% Native, like he and the Redskins PR department claimed. But he is 1/4.

So, while he certainly seems dishonest as hell, it's not quite accurate to describe him as a "fake Native American", either.  (Although, he is, apparently, closer to 0% Native than he is to 100%.) 

[s0crates]

The deadspin piece gets into some detail. The 'skins PR people come out looking like, well, PR people.

[Springfield]

Deadspin is a rag that tries to bring anyone and everyone down by any means necessary. They are an unethical Internet click bait money making machine.

I won't ever trust anything they write.

[Zguy28]

I had the first bungundy and gold tee shirt with a picture a white person (hopefully nobody takes offense to being called white) on it and the name "Caucasians" splashed across my Facebook yesterday. It was posted by a friend who is a member of a tribe out of Virginia.

 

Here's the image:

 

[RFKFedEx]

For a nameless white face which is supposed to sum up all of our people, that looks way too much like Mike Shanahan. 

[mrcunning15]

For a nameless white face which is supposed to sum up all of our people, that looks way too much like Mike Shanahan. 

 

If Mike Shanahan had a white pale face. Mike Shanahan's face was rather blushed with a reddish tint is that how we save the name bring him back and so the name is in honor of his lobster skin toned face    I'm pretty sure that's been said before on this thread.

 

Why do N/A's always seem to call out the authenticity of other N/A's especially the ones that don't agree with their stances it's a stupid ad-hominem argument that bears little weight only if the claim of N/A is rather erroneous do I even really care. 

[RFKFedEx]

That pesky Dave McKenna strikes again. The team needs to sue him for printing so many lies.

[rictus58]

The deadspin piece gets into some detail. The 'skins PR people come out looking like, well, PR people.

The PR branch of the team is too busy planning mass emails to get people to buy shirts after the team gets beat...at home....on national TV.....again.

[RedskinsFan44]

A different name change:

 

(Reuters) - The Seattle City Council unanimously voted on Monday to redesignate the federal Columbus Day holiday as Indigenous Peoples' Day to reflect that Native Americans were living on the continent before Christopher Columbus' 15th Century arrival.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/06/us-usa-washington-columbus-idUSKCN0HV27E20141006

Apparently Italian-Americans are irate.  I remember an episode of the Sopranos that touched on the subject, it was pretty good.
 

[Patrick Evidente]

People in Seattle are stupid.

[skinfaninny]

Why do N/A's always seem to call out the authenticity of other N/A's especially the ones that don't agree with their stances it's a stupid ad-hominem argument that bears little weight only if the claim of N/A is rather erroneous do I even really care. 

 

Being only part Native American, I wonder the same thing. It seems they believe that only 100% NA count. How would that work for other races? Should you only be considered black if both of your parents were 100% pure? 

 

That was only a comparison, I mean no offense to any racial group. But hey, this is the internet. Let the race wars begin.

[s0crates]

A different name change:

(Reuters) - The Seattle City Council unanimously voted on Monday to redesignate the federal Columbus Day holiday as Indigenous Peoples' Day to reflect that Native Americans were living on the continent before Christopher Columbus' 15th Century arrival.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/06/us-usa-washington-columbus-idUSKCN0HV27E20141006

Apparently Italian-Americans are irate. I remember an episode of the Sopranos that touched on the subject, it was pretty good.

There's a lot of things not to like about Seattle, but this isn't part of it.

Knowing what I know about history, Columbus isn't the type of person we should glorify. When he landed in the Bahamas, the Arawak people swam out to greet him with gifts. He enslaved them, and within a couple decades there weren't any Arawaks left on the islands (estimates as high as 100,000 dead). Italians can be pissed if they want, but Columbus was a ruthless and greedy slave driver who slaughtered innocents, not someone to be proud of.

Also, having grown up in a town where they called Martin Luther King Jr. Day "Lee, Jackson, King Day," I think it would be more than a little hypocritical of me to criticize another town for renaming a holiday.

[Zguy28]

If Mike Shanahan had a white pale face. Mike Shanahan's face was rather blushed with a reddish tint is that how we save the name bring him back and so the name is in honor of his lobster skin toned face    I'm pretty sure that's been said before on this thread.

 

Why do N/A's always seem to call out the authenticity of other N/A's especially the ones that don't agree with their stances it's a stupid ad-hominem argument that bears little weight only if the claim of N/A is rather erroneous do I even really care. 

After all, no true Native American would not be offended by it.