{"id":68988,"date":"2016-06-20T09:24:23","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T14:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=68988"},"modified":"2016-06-12T14:36:01","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T19:36:01","slug":"white-supremacy-and-the-intractability-of-the-fight-over-the-redskns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2016\/06\/20\/white-supremacy-and-the-intractability-of-the-fight-over-the-redskns\/","title":{"rendered":"White Supremacy and the Intractability of the Fight Over the Redsk*ns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month the Washington Post<\/em> released the results of a poll<\/a>\u00a0of self-identified Native Americans. It asked respondents whether they found\u00a0the Washington\u00a0Redsk*ns mascot offensive and 90% responded that they did not.<\/p>\n

Dr. Adrienne Keene responded<\/a>\u00a0at Native Appropriations<\/a>, where she has been blogging about Native issues, and the mascot issue, for years. She questioned the methods and her discussion is worth a read. It’s both a great example of uninformed\/biased\u00a0polling and an introduction to the politics of Native identity and citizenship.<\/p>\n

She also questioned the logic behind doing the survey at all and that’s what I’d like to talk about here.\u00a0“I just don\u2019t understand\u00a0why\u00a0<\/em>WaPo felt the need to do this poll,” Keene wrote. “We\u2019ve got psychological studies<\/a>, tribal council votes<\/a>, thousands of Native voices<\/a>, and common decency and respect on our side, yet that\u00a0was not enough<\/em>.” What is there left to understand?<\/p>\n

“This is just an investment in white supremacy, plain and simple,” she concluded.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to parse motivations, especially institutional ones, but it’s arguable that the effect of the poll was to shore up white supremacy by undermining decades of Native activism against the mascot, validating white\u00a0people’s defense of it, and weakening challenges.<\/p>\n

The owner of the Redsk*ins, Daniel Snyder, who strongly\u00a0defends<\/a> the use of the term, immediately pounced on the poll, writing in a statement:<\/p>\n

The Washington Redskins team, our fans and community have always believed our name represents honor, respect and pride.\u00a0Today\u2019s Washington Post<\/em> polling shows Native Americans agree. We are gratified by this overwhelming support from the Native American community, and the team will proudly carry the Redskins name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By mid-afternoon the day the poll was released, Keene noted that there were already over 100 articles written about it, alongside repeated images of the Redsk*ns logo, an anachronistic depiction of an Indian\u00a0wearing\u00a0braids and\u00a0feathers that portrays\u00a0Native people as historical instead of contemporary.<\/p>\n

\"4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And the poll very well might be used in the ongoing court\u00a0battle\u00a0over whether the Redsk*ns trademark can be pulled (federal law does not allow for trademarking\u00a0racial slurs, so the fight is over whether the word is a slur or not).<\/p>\n

Keene asks, “Who does this serve?”<\/p>\n

It’s a good question, but\u00a0questioning the motivation for the poll is just part\u00a0of a larger and even more absurd question that anti-Redsk*ns activists are forced to ask: “Why\u00a0is this even a fight?”<\/p>\n

“We just want respect as human beings,” Keene implores. It would be easy to change the name. Quite easy. It just takes a decision to do it. Not even a democratic one. It wouldn’t even be particularly expensive. And fans\u00a0would get over it. Why is it necessary to keep the name? Who does it serve? There is no doubt that the word redsk*ns is arguably<\/em> offensive. Many Natives are and have been saying so. Why isn’t that enough?\u00a0The fact that Snyder and other supporters defend the name so vociferously\u00a0— the fact that this is even a conversation — is white supremacy, “plain\u00a0and simple,” too.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month the Washington Post released the results of a poll\u00a0of self-identified Native Americans. It asked respondents whether they found\u00a0the Washington\u00a0Redsk*ns mascot offensive and 90% responded that they did not. Dr. Adrienne Keene responded\u00a0at Native Appropriations, where she has been blogging about Native issues, and the mascot issue, for years. She questioned the methods and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":68992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[232,274,283,285,1758,20063,108],"class_list":["post-68988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cultural-imperialismneocolonialism","tag-methodsuse-of-data","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-american-indiansaboriginals","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2016\/06\/4-3.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68988"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68996,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68988\/revisions\/68996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}