Never Is Now for the Washington Football Team
Dan Snyder said he would “never change the name”
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Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder is currently eating the words of a statement from 2013 saying that he would “never change the name” of the Washington D.C. football franchise.
An altogether different statement came from the team on July 23, which states that the team will temporarily be changing its name to the Washington Football Team for the 2020 season, pending the adoption of a new name. The decision follows up a press release from July 13, which said that the franchise would officially retire the name and mascot at the end of a review process of the name.
“Starting tomorrow and over the next 50 days, we will begin the process of retiring all Redskins branding from team properties whether it be FedExField, Redskins Park, other physical and digital spaces,” the statement from July 23 reads.
With this decision, the team joins organizations around the nation that are putting their beholden leaders on trial and renaming their monikers in light of the Black Lives Matter movement which is, for many people, putting racism into a broader perspective, and calls for national awareness of how people and traditions memorialized and celebrated in the US can perpetuate and endorse white supremacy.
The announcement that the team name would undergo a thorough review came within a day of corporate sponsors requesting that the team change the name. That said, this is not a new issue. It is crucial to understand that Native American leaders and activists have been putting in the action for this name to change for over half a century.
Recent Debate
The 2010s were a time of mass public awareness. Although this debate spans the course of fifty years or more, here are some efforts than have taken place in the last decade.
A timeline further below provides more detail, including the intricacies of a legal battle that took place between the team and Native American leaders from 1992–2017.
The movement to change the mascot
The Change the Mascot campaign was launched by the Oneida Indian Nation in 2013. It is a grassroots campaign that “works to educate the public about the damaging effects on Native Americans arising from the continued use of the R-Word,” according to a press release from July 13.
The success of the Change The Mascot campaign builds upon decades of work done by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which launched a campaign in 1968 to address stereotypes of Native people in the media. NCAI is the country’s “oldest, largest, and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization,” according to their webpage.
The NCAI released a YouTube video called “Proud To Be (Mascots)” in 2014 that has garnered over 5 million views. It exemplifies Native Americans as teachers, patriots, mothers, sisters and modern day champions of our society. One point of the video is that Native Americans call themselves many things, but all of these identities go beyond reducing them to a mascot.
The opposition from team owner and fans
Team owner Daniel Snyder has previously stated that he would never change the team’s name, saying for years that it is a form of honor and respect to Native people. The argument may be best represented by this video from the Daily Show in 2014, which interviews fans of the Washington Football Team alongside Native American activists and public figures.
With the renewed call to change the name in 2013, Snyder launched the “Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation” in 2014, a private charity to support Native American groups. Snyder then launched a lobbying effort to promote his foundation’s work to Congress as the controversy over the team’s name was reaching its peak, Capital News Service reported.
The team also released a video in 2014 called “Redskins is a Powerful Name,” which shows Native Americans from the Navajo Nation, Blackfeet Nation and Chippeaw Cree Tribe, and others, vouching their support for the team’s name, one saying that “the intent has never been to degrade people,” and another saying that the name “represents a strong, majestic warrior.”
Another consensus from the Native people interviewed in the video is that there are larger struggles posed to Native American communities that call for the national attention the mascot issue receives, and that people who want to change the mascot or team name should focus on these “bigger issues.” That said, other Native Americans have successfully argued in court that mascots and those other challenges posed to Native communities are related.
Psychology
In 1997, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, changed its name from the “Redskins” to the “Redhawks” at the request of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.
“I don’t think it was a politically correct move; I think it was a humanely correct move.”
-Wayne Embry
Wayne Embry, the general manager of the team at the time, said that he didn’t think that it was a politically correct move, but rather a humanely correct move. It suggests what many scholars find to be true, which is that the issue of changing the name and mascot extends beyond political correctness, a name or a logo.
Harmful effects of the term “redskin”
The term “redskin” is defined in the dictionary as “a contemputous term used to refer to a North American Indian.” It also notes that the term is “Older Slang” as well as “Disparaging and Offensive.” Even then, one must look beyond a dictionary to define this word.
The origin of the term is debated, some citing that it was a translation of a term that Native Americans used to refer to themselves, while others claim that the term was indicative of a time when there was a bounty on Native people, and that the term was used as a way to quantify Native victims, in the form of bloody scalps, or “redskins.”
Debating the origin of the term often misses the point. The most convincing evidence for retiring this word from cultural vocabulary is the connotations that it carries with it today, and the ways it was used as a negative slang against Native Americans for decades in film and other media.
Geoffrey Nunberg, the linguist who testified against the football team in their trademark proceedings, argues that “redskin” has been used as a “slang word” by white people to refer to Native Americans since at least the mid-1800s. Nunberg provided the court with passages from books and newspapers, as well as movie clips, that show that the word is inevitably associated with attitudes of contempt and condescension.
Nunberg also argues that while team names can be a “tribute” to a certain group of people, that names like “redskins” aren’t meant to honor anyone, but rather, are meant to ignite a sense of savagery and inhumanity in a fan base. Using terms like “redskins” and using Native American imagery as mascots compares, within our culture, Native Americans to other mascots, which are typically depictions of animals and destructive forces of the natural world.
Harmful effects of mascots
If Snyder’s true intention was uplifting the lives of Native people, he wouldn’t ignore the science, which says that Native American mascots have real and harmful effects on Native people, specifically youth. In 2005, the American Psychology Association (APA) called for the retirement of all American Indian mascots, symbols, images and personalities by schools, colleges, universities, athletic teams and organizations.”
APA cited several justifications for this statement, including the fact that Native American mascots undermine the educational experiences for those who have little to no contact with indigenous people, meaning that mascots teach non-Native children that it’s OK to perpetuate misconceptions about Native American culture and identity through stereotyping.
With stereotypes of Native people so widely spread and accepted through mascots and other caricatures, these depictions are often misunderstood as factual representations of Native people. When non-Native people inform their understanding of Native Americans based on their understanding of mascots, it sets up non-Native people to have prejudiced ideas of what it means to be Native American.
These preconceived notions of what Native Americans are supposed to be, fueled by stereotypical images in mascots and team names, undermine the ability of Native Americans to portray fair and accurate representations of themselves and of their culture. With a majority of the non-Native population unexposed to the reality of Native American life, Native people are too often restrained by having to first break down the ideology of what other people expect them to be.
The psychology of NFL fans
The response from Snyder and fans is indicative of identification psychology, wherein a fan’s identity becomes bound to the players and team. In his book “The Secret Life of Sports Fans,” Eric Simmons explores how a sports team is an expansion of a fan’s sense of self, and there is a genuine sense of confusion in the brain of sports fans as to what is “me” and what is “the team.”
The benefits of this are self-esteem, pride, identity and belonging, Simmons claims, but this also causes fans to explain and rationalize the actions of the team. This could be explaining why the team “had a bad season” one year, or rationalizing why the team is entitled to use Native American imagery as a mascot, or racial slurs as a team name.
The self-esteem of fans depends on the outcome of the game and the overall image of the franchise, Simmons said in a 2015 Washington Post article. So, for the invested Washington Football Team fan, the idea of changing the name could be misinterpreted as a personal offense. These actions are unconscious, Simmons found, but that does not excuse their ignorance.
Timeline
Breaking down the last 90 years of controversy
The timeline of this issue, in reality, is more complex than a straight line or a two-sided narrative of events. It is made up of the struggles and actions of real people, and all the intricacies of the lives that they balanced as they continued their efforts. This timeline does not depict the decades of harmful US government policy carried out against Native people. It does not represent every time someone spoke out for or against the use of Native mascots. That said, these are some of the significant events of this issue.
1930s
In 1932, the Washington Football Team is founded as the Boston Braves. The team then changes its name to the “Redskins” in 1933 to avoid being mistaken for Boston’s baseball team and relocates to Washington D.C. in 1937.
1944
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is established in response to US government policies like termination and assimilation.
1967
The Washington Football Team obtains federal trademark registration for the “Redskins” franchise with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
1968
The NCAI launches an official campaign to address negative and harmful stereotypes of Native Americans in media.
1972
Representatives of NCAI, the American Indian Press Association and the American Indian Movement reach out to the team directly to request the franchise name be changed, stating that it is a “derogatory racial epithet.”
1992
In January, a crowd of over 2,000 protestors gathers in Minneapolis ahead of the Washington Football Team Super Bowl game, led by the American Indian Movement. In September, a prominent group of American Indian leaders led by Suzan Harjo petition the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Trial and Appeal Board asking the team’s federal trademark registrations be revoked.
They did this on the grounds of the Lanham Act, which provides protections to trademark owners, but had a clause that could deny registrations of trademarks that “may disparage persons, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute.”
1999
In April, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board rules in Pro-Football, Inc. v. Harjo that the term “redskin” is disparaging to Native Americans and orders the cancellation of all “REDSKINS” trademarks. The following month, Daniel Snyder buys the team in a blind auction.
The cancellation of the trademarks did not restrict the team from using them, but it did restrict the team’s ability to go after copyright infringers under the Lanham Act.
2003
A U.S. District Court Judge throws out the 1999 decision and rules that Harjo and others have not produced substantial evidence to prove that the name was disparaging to Native Americans, and cites that there was an “unjustifiable delay” in the petitioners bringing the issue to court.
2006
Harjo recruits a group of petitioners led by Amanda Blackhorse to challenge the trademark again, petitioning the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board with younger petitions.
The younger petitioners trump the previous claim of an “unjustifiable delay,” as they could not have brought the claim any sooner, as they were not of legal age to do so.
2013
In early May, Daniel Snyder says he will never change the team name. “We’ll never change the name,” he told USA Today’s Erik Brady. “It’s that simple. NEVER — you can use caps.”
Also that month, 10 members of Congress send a letter to Dan Snyder, the NFL commissioner, FedEx president and 31 other NFL owners encouraging them to adapt a new name for the team.
2014
In June, the Trademark Trail and Appeal Board votes in Pro-Football, Inc. v, Blackhorse to cancel federal trademark protections for the “REDSKINS” trademark, citing it to be disparaging to Native Americans.
Also that year, in May, 50 members of the US Senate send letters to the NFL commissioner urging him to endorse that the franchise change its name.
2017
The Supreme Court rules in a separate case, involving an Asian American rock band, that banning trademarks that “may disparage” people is a violation of the First Amendment. Amanda Blackhorse and the Justice Department withdraw from further litigation.
Simon Tam, lead singer of the rock group, called “The Slants,” said that he chose the name as a way to reclaim the term and “drain it of its denigrating force as a derogatory term for Asian persons.” Tam sought federal registration for the trademark “THE SLANTS” and was denied by the Patent and Trademark Office under the Lanham Act provision. The Supreme court ruled that this provision violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, which brings the other cases citing this provision to a moot point.
2020
Corporate sponsors ask the team to change their name in July and the team concedes.
On July 2, FedEx issues a statement saying that it has requested the Washington team to change its name, and the next day, the team announces that it will “undergo a thorough review of the team’s name.” Ten days later, on July 13, the team announces they “will be retiring the Redskins name and logo.” Another ten days pass, and the team announces on July 23 that the name will be temporarily changed to the Washington Football Team for the 2020 NFL season as Snyder works to develop a new name.
Conclusion
The power of public opinion
Sponsors withdrew their support after a group of investment firms and shareholders, worth a collective total of over $620 billion in assets, called on FedEx, Nike and PepsiCo to end their relationship with the team unless it change its name.
This issue had been raised twice in court, efforts led by matriarchal American Indian leadership from Suzan Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, and Amanda Blackhorse, Navajo. Those efforts were ultimately brought to a moot point by the First Amendment, the same standard that allowed protests and public outrage of the name to continue.
It wasn’t the investors who had a change of heart — all suddenly becoming activists themselves — it was the balance of public opinion finally shifting to the name being widely unacceptable.
There was a national campaign championed by the NCAI to retire the name and mascot of the football franchise. They educated the public on why Native American caricatures, and term “redskin,” are harmful to Native Americans. And the name has finally been changed due to these efforts, though the battle was ultimately won in the court of public opinion rather than that of patents and trademarks.
Now a new shift is happening in the world, which is offering an opportunity for Native American youth, artists, advocates, activists and influencers to represent themselves with the advent and widespread use of social media apps like Instagram and TikTok. The power is now in the hands of Native Americans to create their own media platforms and accurately represent themselves and their culture.
