By Tex DeVille
Ugh… I cannot believe I’m going to write about this. I’ve
fought it, and I’ve fought it, and I’ve fought it, but here I am. The hot topic
button in the sports world right now is whether the Redskins moniker is offensive.
How important is this? Apparently more important than the national deficit,
unemployment, a bad economy, horrible education standards, AIDS, cancer, war,
famine, pestilence, death, and taxes. Okay, I may have gone a little overboard,
but how else do you explain that ALL OF CONGRESS is dropping the bills and laws
and budgets to talk about this. Oh, it’s only 10 people? And 10 people are
supposed to (ahem) represent our collective opinion? Well, as always, politics
is going about it all wrong. As always, they have to go about it in the most
present-minded, ignorant, divisive way possible. But I’ll get to that. Let’s
start from the beginning.
As you know, I am a ravenous, avid, insatiable Cowboys fan.
Read my other columns if you want proof. Go ahead. I’ll wait…….. Ok, you good? So, as you can probably surmise, I couldn’t care less if the Redskins go
0-16 for the rest of my life. That is until I read a pointless, lazy, careless
article by Ashley Fox of ESPN. She compared how “easy” it is to rebrand a team
name to the Washington Bullets becoming the Wizards, the New Orleans Hornets
becoming the Pelicans, and the Charlotte Bobcats becoming the Hornets once
again. Of those 3 examples, ONLY the Bullets-to-Wizards change is a reflection
of the society at the time. Tom Benson is changing the Hornets to the Pelicans
to reflect Louisiana (Pelicans are the state bird) and Catholic (Pelicans are
used in Catholic symbolism as representing Christ) culture. Tom Benson LOVES
New Orleans and the Catholic culture that is native to it. He just donated $10
million to a local Catholic high school. He donated $7.5 million to Tulane this
past November. He’s donated many times to Loyola University. He was born and
raised in New Orleans. Changing the name to reflect the culture does not count
as a rebranding. The Bobcats-to-Hornets was obvious the moment Benson let go of
the name. The Hornets have a richer history than the Bobcats. If anything, this
shows that name changes are not always positive and sometimes you need to go
back!
Here is the other question I have: why all the scrutiny of
the Redskins? Because they’re successful. No one gives a lick about the
Cleveland Indians’ because they’re in Cleveland and they suck. Same thing with
the Kansas City Chiefs. People target the Redskins because they’re in D.C. and,
while not very successful on the field, are worth over $1.6 billion. It’s all
about the greenbacks. Oh, whoops. I mean money. I better not offend our great
green brethren…oh, you don’t believe me about it all being about money? About
10 years ago, a similar lawsuit was dismissed, essentially, because the courts
called the plaintiffs out on the fact that they were all old and were just now
bringing up this suit. The plaintiffs’ responded that they had kids that would
be able to do this same lawsuit in a few years. They didn’t say that their kids
are also offended, just that their kids will do their work for them. This
lawsuit smells like when a crazy mom or dad does EVERYTHING to make sure their
kids are athletes or actors or whatever just because the parents never made it.
But it’s really easy for me, right? I’m a white male. I, of
course, have everything handed to me, and nothing is ever hard. Oh, wait, I’m
also Catholic, historically one of the most hated segments of religious
population. You want proof? Check out the FBI’s watch list of religious groups;
we evidently pose a higher threat than Muslims. I’m also Irish. THAT
discrimination is well documented. Watch Gangs of New York for some
insight on that. So, you know what really offends me? Notre Dame’s continuance
of the stereotype that all Irish Catholics are violent leprechaun types. You
know what else offends me? That Boston’s NBA team would mispronounce my
heritage and disrespect our discriminated ancestors by calling themselves the
“Seltics.” Celtic is supposed to be a hard C. See? I can be offended by random,
stupid stuff, too.
Besides, it’s not like we change OTHER historical names to
fit the times. We still refer to the historic and, thankfully, defunct Negro
League. We don’t call it the African-American League. Why? Because of the
history of the league. Because of the importance of the league in regards to
eventually ending racial barriers. But so what? It’s a defunct league; it
doesn’t exist anymore. Keeping the racially insensitive name speaks to the
history, and maybe if it still existed because the racial barrier unfortunately
still existed, then maybe the name would change. Fine, what about a current and
active organization: the NAACP. They don’t call it the National Association for
the Advancement of African-Americans. Aside from being a cool nickname – NquadA
– it has not changed. Why? It’s been 40 some-odd years since Colored People was
not the accepted designation of the African-American people. Oh, it’s because
of the history of the people that were instrumental in Civil Rights? It was
significant in American history? You’ve got me there. It’s not like the
Redskins have a similar history…
Oh wait, that’s EXACTLY what the Redskins did. It actually
brings me to what I believe is the largest problem with the Redskins
controversy: to change the name would be to spit in the faces of Native
Americans. Wait, what? Yeah. Thanks to a conversation with Dylan, I looked up an
article found on the Bleacher Report. This
link tells the history of the Redskins. Long story short: NATIVE-AMERICANS
CHOSE THE NAME REDSKINS!!!! That’s right. They found the name Braves more
offensive than Redskins. So, to EVERYONE who keeps on about how it’s offensive
and saying how bad Dan Snyder is for being, as Ashley Fox puts it, “a bully who
doesn’t want to be bullied,” maybe Snyder just actually knows his history.
Maybe he’s actually being more respectful than any knee-jerk politician and
sports analyst. Maybe, just maybe, Dan Snyder is simply a better American than
others. And that is from the lips of a die-hard Cowboys fan. Now,
I hope the Redskins don’t go 0-16 for the rest of my life if, for no other reason, so they can have
enough success to keep fighting this ridiculous fight.
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