Hey, the Washington Redskins are coming to town this week and there will be some controversy. That’s because Washington’s football team insists on calling itself the Redskins and a lot of Native Americans find that term offensive.
And why wouldn’t they? I probably wouldn’t like it if there was a football team called the Honkeys.
“We support effectively removing all race-based stereotypes,” said Barb Munson of Mosinee, a member of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin and of the Wisconsin Indian Education Association’s Mascot and Logo Taskforce.
The Indian education association is hosting a session Friday at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on the issue, and several members expect to be on hand for the noon game Sunday to hold signs objecting to Washington’s team name and logo.
But, mind you, there will not be a formal protest by the Oneida Nation. No, that probably wouldn’t fly too well with the Green Bay Packers brass, since Oneida is one of the team’s biggest sponsors.
Anyway, the Redskins have been called the Redskins since 1932, but the name has come under fire in recent years. Members of Congress have sent letters to owner Dan Snyder and commissioner Roger Goodell opposing the name and a media campaign was launched by the Oneida tribe in New York.
Goodell has danced around the issue, while Snyder has remained hard headed and said he’ll never change the team’s name.
I can see the argument for tradition and all that, but what year are we living in? The Washington Bullets changed their name to the Wizards not too long ago because, you know, it’s not cool to shoot people, and they managed to survive.