I know the argument against the team name. I grew up with the team name since the Theisman days. I studied courses at university on what the team name meant for Native peoples and their fight 30 years ago against it. I get it. Today, a teacher I know (with season tickets she inherited from her grandfather!) didn't understand what the big deal was. She said, what about the Minnesota Vikings - there aren't Scottish Americans taking them to court. And she said in baseball there are the Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians that aren't being targeted by these native groups - I don't know those cities. Then I point out to her those ethnic names are not necessarily disparaging and hurtful, nor do they conjure up a history of cultural genocide. I tell her Native Americans were referred to as redskins with the same ignorance and hate as other groups. Would it be okay to have the Seattle Spics or the Nashville Niggas? No it would not be acceptable. It would not be tolerated. A single word can carry a lot of meaning beyond the simple ignorance of the speaker - hate, pain, history, continued oppression. We, as a people, know that. Let us not pretend we understand the Native American experience in the US just because we watched Dances With Wolves a few times.
On the other hand...yes there is another hand. Redskin was a derogatory name to call Native peoples nearly 100 years ago - before cars for goodness sake. Surely it was used more recently in certain areas of the country where Native Americans play the same role as Blacks or the Latinos would in a white-dominated population. I've heard stories. How recently I don't know. I DO know what it meant for me and my son to attend a Redskins home pre-season game recently. We had cheap coupon tickets and from a generous event worker received 9th row tickets. Ninth row!! I could nearly read the names on the players' jersies! The stadium looked so grand from the side of the field, so many people in maroon high into the lights, so many side liners involved - it was very exciting.
But this is what else I saw. I saw a brown skinned Native profile on the shirt of every spectator around me, on every player in front of me. I saw tens of thousands of fans cheering to the sight of that brown skinned profile. I saw fans around me who had paid hundreds of dollars for their seat, most of them different hues of brown skin, all waving their hands in the air, encouraging players to do better, singing the song "...braves on the warpath, fight for ole' DC..." -- the Chocolate City. I looked down at my beautiful brown skinned son and realized I was the odd one out. I realized in some way it had to affect him to be surrounded by all this excitement over a team garnished with a brown skinned celebrity. An unnamed celebrity to be sure, but looking like him, fighting bravely, being hailed by the masses.
I know its not politically correct. I know the owner should just change the team name without continuing the battle over ethnic stereotyping and copyright. But what if I'm right; what if that experience instills pride in people and gives brown skinned Americans the chance to feel empowered. What if it empowers my son? Can't we just ask the Native Americans to take back the term, to redefine it, to give it power. "That's right we are redskinned and proud. We are the first Americans and we will stand up to the white invaders and work to protect others like us."
One friend calls them the Washington Area Football Team (the WAFTs). Is that the solution? Here in DC the federal government does love its acronyms! I don't know the solution but I do know the experience positively influenced my son's view of himself - how could it not?
