{"id":344,"date":"2008-01-04T00:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-04T06:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2008\/01\/04\/redskins-and-racism\/"},"modified":"2008-07-22T14:49:38","modified_gmt":"2008-07-22T20:49:38","slug":"redskins-and-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2008\/01\/04\/redskins-and-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"redskins and racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>this fall, the debate over offensive team nicknames flared up again at the minnversity. nobody objects to our golden gophers<\/em><\/a> <\/em>nickname — at least nobody outside the close-knit rodent urophiliac community. nevertheless, many question whether our gophs should continue to take the ice against the fighting sioux<\/a> of north dakota.<\/p>\n

in contrast to the ongoing campus debates at illinois, florida state, north dakota, and elsewhere, i’ve heard absolutely no outrage, zero indignation, and nary a protest as the washington redskins<\/a> prepare for the playoffs this weekend.* isn’t redskins <\/em>the most racist and offensive team name in sport? we’re not talking about a borderline moniker like warriors <\/em>or even chiefs. redskins <\/em>is a degrading ethnic slur, pure and simple, stubbornly attached to the home football team in Our Nation’s Capitol.<\/div>\n
i’m an old-school sports traditionalist, so my first <\/em>official act as nfl commissioner would be to return the nicknames of the colts and the cards back to the good citizens of baltimore and st. louis, respectively. my second <\/em>official act, however, would involve harsh economic sanctions on the redskins until they changed the name — to ‘skins, <\/em>to reds, <\/em>or to my personal favorite, the washington wonks.<\/em><\/div>\n
i’ve got nothing against the washington football team. as a chubby li’l pee-wee fullback, my hero was the the great riggo<\/a>. like john riggins, i was a north-south runner (mostly south in my case, now that i think about it). while i could always forgive mr. riggins’ ungentlemanly remarks<\/a>, the redskins nickname just bugs me more and more each year.<\/div>\n
i simply can’t see a good argument for keeping such an ugly nickname. tradition? <\/em>well, the washington team was originally called the braves. <\/em>the <\/em>boston braves<\/a>, in fact. moreover, at least part<\/em> of the storied redskins tradition is a well-documented history of racism<\/a>. the team’s management so resisted african american players that shirley povich was inspired to report, “Cleveland Browns fullback Jim Brown \u201cintegrated the Redskins\u2019 goal line with more than deliberate speed.\u201d<\/em> in truth, it was not until 1962 that the redskins were integrated, and only then when facing direct threats from the kennedy administration.<\/div>\n

though my childhood hero once led the ‘skins to glory, i’ll be rooting for seattle’s seahawks in tomorrow’s game<\/a>. i’ll return to washington fandom, however, once the redskin moniker departs — whether by lawsuit<\/a> or by a new owner<\/a> who shares my vision.<\/p>\n

*i did come across a couple older op-eds: see michael tomasky<\/a> in american prospect <\/em>and salim muwakkil<\/a> in alternet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

this fall, the debate over offensive team nicknames flared up again at the minnversity. nobody objects to our golden gophers nickname — at least nobody outside the close-knit rodent urophiliac community. nevertheless, many question whether our gophs should continue to take the ice against the fighting sioux of north dakota. in contrast to the ongoing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[31525],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}