Redskins Can Keep Their Name

Some Native Perspective

Years ago, I asked my dad - a full-blooded American Indian - what he thought about the Washington Redskins team name and if it should be changed. The look on his face was resolute and his response was quick. With almost a chuckle, he said, "I hope they don't change the name." Just as with many queries, Dad had no interest in being convinced. The younger mind might easily write off such a dismissal as short-sighted or obtuse. The only problem was my dad wasn't either of those things.

When I moved to DC in 2000, I decided I would try to settle in and root for the local teams. Football season made it hard, but I cheered for the Redskins, hoping they would do well. However, my first impression was not a good one. They would find ways to lose every week, and it seemed that they fired a kicker every game - that was personal, as I used to be a kicker. I think after Week 5, I swore them off, but at that point hadn't thought much about the team name.

Where I grew up, my friends were White, Hispanic, Black, and Asian. I'm a special blend. The only Native Americans I knew were in my family. My friends and I grew up with a healthy sense of humor about our differences, and perhaps I was lucky not to have been born a certain color or in a place that made me a target because of how I looked. No one ever called me a "redskin." I had heard the term more historically, but never as a contemporary insult. On the contrary, people have always regarded my heritage from my dad's side with a certain reverence - even undue sometimes it felt.

Growing in my country and traveling quite a bit, I have gained some different perspectives. The United States is full of strangeness and inconsistencies. I remember the first time I heard a mayor refer to his city as a "chocolate city." Is that okay? It must be, since no one seemed to care. Some time later, Chris Rock did a standup routine that featured how peculiar it was that the Redskins team name exists, but would not be tolerable to name a team after any other racial group, especially with a pejorative. That resonated with me. I often posed the question to friends: "Why don't they change the name to Blackskins? Oh, would that be racist?" The team name never kept me up at night, but I always resented the double standard that I perceived. What's more, my thoughts on the subject - as a tribal member - didn't seem to change anybody's minds. So, I just decided not to watch the team, or if unavoidable to root against them.

There have been different opinions on the "Redskins" team name over the years, but what has seemed to be clear - owner Dan Snyder, Washingtonians, and 'Skins fans do not care what I think. As far as I know, before a few days ago, other than as a casual liberal stance, nobody really cared about the team name. Sure, some television announcers would find creative ways of referring to the DC football team without saying it, and you'd hear musings by miscellaneous White people from time to time. But FedEx didn't care. Pepsi didn't care. Nike didn't care... All of a sudden, people and corporations seem to care about changing the name - or to force a change rather - enough so that it seems inevitable that a new name is afoot.

Oddly enough, I've changed my mind.

DC, Snyder, you can keep your name, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care anymore. I won't buy your product, but I don't care about your team name. It's clear you are only considering a change because you may no longer have the option. People think they are doing some heroic thing by strong-arming a business that has no interest in changing their own image. As far as I'm concerned, the Redskins name is just the newest statue to bring down by force for points while everyone is watching.

Perhaps in Dad's wisdom, worrying about someone else's team or business name is a frivolous endeavor. Concluding that this far into my blog entry is actually somewhat annoying, but here we are. Perhaps Dad's pride in himself and the things he could control was what led him to chuckle at my question. Or maybe he liked the name. In any case, do what you like; it has no effect on my life.

The Racism Wolf You Love to Cry

Let’s not pretend you care about racism. Sadly, many of my fellow Americans do not even seem that concerned with truth. We care more about what supports our version of the truth, and we can all see (if we try) that is having devastating consequences.

When I first watched the video from the National Mall this past weekend featuring the now famous encounter, I was saddened and angry like most people. So, I watched it again, and it seemed so heartless. Furthermore, I personally identified with everyone present – someone of white heritage, a conservative, a Catholic, a proponent of the right to life… and a Native American. It didn’t make sense. Surely, a trained progressive would tell me that is because I am privileged not to see racism. However, a correction should be made - I choose first to see truth.

The primary account of the story was that the high school boys surrounded Nathan Phillips – a Native American Man – and ridiculed him as he peacefully played his drum. According to Phillips, he was responding to the boys who were chanting, “Build That Wall” and were acting angrily toward him and others. Of all the cameras recording this situation that day, not one seems to have recorded the purported chant. Of all video footage available, the boys do not appear to be angry. They were in effect having an impromptu pep rally, as claimed by a participant to counter or drown out the real hate – from a small group of extremely vocal “Black Hebrew Israelites.” 

If this is the same group of men who gather to preach their intolerance at Metro stops in Washington, D.C., then I am somewhat familiar with their rants, and locals usually just walk by in attempts to ignore them. On the National Mall that day, these “preachers” are recorded calling these high school students from Kentucky “dusty ass crackers,” “incest babies,” “school shooters,” and more. In addition, they made hateful references to women, Catholics, homosexuals, and even Native Americans as “Uncle Tomahawks.” Yet, no one in this national knee-jerk outcry have a tenth of the interest in denouncing this pure, blatant hate speech in their quest to confront racism. Why is that? After riding public transportation in Washington, D.C. for years, this kind of black-on-nonblack vitriol is not unheard of, and nobody raises an eyebrow. I have been threatened with gun violence, called an Anglo-Saxon, told my mother must be a whore to have a son like me - all within the Metro system and once by a Metro employee. No one stopped a bus or stepped in to protect me on the train, and certainly no one started a viral campaign to counter or promote violence against my verbal attackers. People just look the other way.

Why? Because that’s not the way racism is supposed to work. White people are racist. Republicans are racist. “Make America Great Again” caps are inherently racist. Confronting someone who is from a traditionally oppressed group is racist. So, you have a Native American with cameras rolling behind him walk up and get in the face of a white boy with a MAGA hat – who doesn’t budge - and you have liberal internet gold! Never mind, these boys were not recorded saying anything hateful. Never mind, these boys seemed to be chanting along with Mr. Phillips happily. Never mind that the boys were audibly uncomfortable with one of their own African-American classmates being called the N-word or with homosexuals being openly disparaged. Never mind that one of the other Native American instigators told the boys to “go back to Europe, where you came from; this is not your land!” No, that’s not the way racism is supposed to work.

People like to tell other people how racism works, and to some extent, I appreciate the enlightenment. However, it’s gone too far, and people have overplayed their hands. Too many people rely too heavily on this too soon, that they do the actual cause of seeking racial harmony (wait, what?) harm in the attempt to appear in the moral majority. If you rushed to judgment, you don’t care about racism, and you don’t care about the truth. You care about yourself - whether you are a news outlet trying to get clicks, a member of Congress trying to score political points, or just a regular person trying to be woke. You want to be a part of this Indian’s peace prayer chant? Calm down and see people and situations for who and what they are, regardless of what that can do for you.

I Can't Not Stand - A Former Coach's Perspective

I had inherited the habit of standing for the entire match from previous coaches of mine, although the trend at the time became that the soccer coach sits on the bench with the rest of the team. Discouraged and upset at our inability to play as I thought we were able one day, I took a seat on the bench to cool off. Coaches are quite cognizant that a myriad of actions, inactions, words, references, even intonations are crucial to conveying a message. I knew that just by sitting down, I was signaling my displeasure and frustration, but I only knew the half of it. Following our loss, my players walked off the field with sour looks on their faces. To my surprise, they were not as upset at their performance as they were with me.

"What is it?" I asked.

"You gave up on us; you sat down. You always stand," one of my players responded.

Dedicated as I was to my group of high school girls and our team's mission, that was a crushing statement. However, it was true and had a wisdom that I always remembered.

A simplistic, nevertheless accurate, way to look at America is that we are a team - a people bound together by circumstances, a common home territory, and necessity. Like all teams, we have our adversities - selfishness, ego, miscommunication, living up to past successes, and losing sight of the common goal or thread that binds us together. One element designed to keep us focused on the unity that is necessary for any team is our flag. Some view it as a piece of cloth, others see it as a tremendous reminder of what we can be or what we have accomplished, still others see oppression and fault.

What does it say when we decide not to stand and show respect for the one banner of our team?

America is not a monarchy. It is neither a dictatorship, nor an aristocracy. We are a democratic republic, and as such, we are a team of people responsible for our own success or failure. The flag does not represent some ruling elite that we can step back, take a knee, and defy in the name of protest. The flag is us and everything we learned in grade school that can be so right in an imperfect world of self-government. Our team fails often at many things - sometimes at events of great consequence. It may seem that kneeling for the national anthem is actually taking a stand against injustice, but what the rest of us see is that you are giving up on the idea of America. And any coach will tell you you cannot improve an ailing team by dividing it further.

Confrontation, however, is imperative. Except confrontation must be approached within the context of constructively working toward the common goal. I realize that polite discussion seldom solves deeply rooted problems. Oftentimes people need to be shocked into change, but disrespect always puts your adversary (or teammate) on the defensive and is unproductive. You may think that sitting out the national anthem is an effective manner of protest and showing solidarity with victims of injustice in this age of hashtag activism, but true meaningful protest is about engagement, rather than disengagement; sacrifice for a goal, not following trends; intellectual thought, not forwarding memes on social media; patient honesty, not jumping to conclusions; love, not hatred. I know it's hard to do all of this when people are getting killed, but protest is meant to be hard. I'm not saying don't act - act, we all must - but there are other ways to do it that don't signal you've given up on the team.

Raising awareness is only the first step. Too often in our culture today it is seen as an accomplishment, but true accomplishment occurs with a game plan, dedication, and hard work. Most sane Americans want to live in peace and harmony - free from fear and senseless violence. What's the game plan with taking a knee? Doing something is not the same as doing something productive.

Lastly, I will say that, yes, we are divided. For some reason, being out of the country for a year helps you see that even clearer. Not to neglect the reality of our problems, but we do seem rather unenraged by atrocities committed against black and other hued lives outside of our borders. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley may have included that in what he termed, "The Disease of Me." A team divided against itself cannot survive. We seem to constantly find ways to divide ourselves, and it is increasingly troubling. We can fix that, but we have to stand together.