Change it (the Washington team name thread)

After giving ~$3.7M to Native American communities in Year 1, the Original Americans Foundation’s giving dropped. The state of VA lists it as "not in good standing" as tribe officials say they've been ghosted, and recently, turned down for COVID-19 relief: https://t.co/rbC3Evamls

— Jenny Vrentas (@JennyVrentas) July 8, 2020

With owner Daniel Snyder committed to having a new name firmly in place before the season begins, a new name for the Washington franchise is "imminent" https://t.co/3qzcCeL3gE

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) July 11, 2020

zn wrote:

My high school team (and I played on it for a couple of years–linebacker) was/is burgundy and gold. I’ve always loved burgundy and gold.

We were called the Brebeuf Braves.
The school was named after St. Jean de Brebeuf, who was martyred by the Iroquis.

So “Braves” was an interesting nickname choice.

A rich donor commissioned a painting in the school cafeteria of a patiently enduring St. Jean tied to a stake and being ruthlessly tortured by Iroquis…braves. The painting was wall sized and took up one entire whole end of the room.

Fortunately, another rich donor gifted the school a huge curtain to close in front of the painting, so we could eat in peace.
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All very inter esting. So many tribes on this planet, over the centuries. So many issues. Maybe teams should just go with Vegetable names. Vegetable never committed any atrocities as far as i know.

The Wiki story below has Too many Ironies to even begin to unvavel. I am in awe of the many ironies.

And it all ends up on an American high school football helmet.

“….His efforts to develop a complete ethnographic record of the Huron has been described as “the longest and most ambitious piece of ethnographic description in all The Jesuit Relations”.[10] Brébeuf tried to find parallels between the Huron religion and Christianity, so as to facilitate conversion of the Huron to the European religion.[11] Brébeuf was known by the Huron for his apparent shamanistic skills, especially in rainmaking.[12] Despite his efforts to learn their ways, he considered Huron spiritual beliefs to be undeveloped and “foolish delusions”; he was determined to convert them to Christianity.[8] Brébeuf did not enjoy universal popularity with the Huron, as many believed he was a sorcerer.[13] By 1640, nearly half the Huron had died of smallpox and the losses disrupted their society. Many children and elders died. With their loved ones dying before their eyes, many Huron began to listen to the words of Jesuit missionaries who, unaffected by the disease, appeared to be men of great power.[14]

Brébeuf’s progress as a missionary in achieving conversions was slow…
….
…..The Jesuits considered the priests’ martyrdom as proof that the mission to the Native Americans was blessed by God and would be successful.[30]

Throughout the torture, Brébeuf was reported to have been more concerned for the fate of the other Jesuits and of the captive Native converts than for himself. As part of the ritual, the Iroquois drank his blood and ate his heart, as they wanted to absorb Brébeuf’s courage in enduring the pain.[31] The Iroquois mocked baptism by pouring boiling water over his head.[32]….” Wiki
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Never even heard of that film. I’ll have to check it out.

w
v

According to this guy, It is going to be the Washington Red Wolves. If correct, they are the only NFL team to have two names as a team name, unlike MLB that has the White Sox, Red Sox, Blue Jays & the former Devil Rays for example.

Damn it’s official The Washington @redksins are now the REDWOLVES HAHA wow that made my day #FREE58 pic.twitter.com/wjH4AQzmtS

— SACKMANLIVES (@JuniorGalette93) July 12, 2020

pic.twitter.com/wFvTxdUP9s

— Washington Redskins (@Redskins) July 13, 2020

How about an insect name, Arachnids or Humboldt Squids or a Marvel Superhero?

McClain: Forced to do right thing, Washington owner profits nonetheless https://t.co/VWr1ywKUMh

— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) July 14, 2020

On the Shameful and Skewed ‘Redskins’ Poll
The Washington Post did a grave disservice by utterly ignoring studies that clearly demonstrate the harm mascotting causes.

MAY 25, 2016

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/on-the-shameful-and-skewed-redskins-poll/

Last Thursday, The Washington Post published a poll on its front page that found that 90 percent of “Native Americans” were “not bothered” by the dictionary-defined ethnic slur “Redskins,” sending shock waves through the sports world and Indian Country. That slur, of course, is also the name of the local NFL franchise that the Post covers.

This article is part of the Edge of Sports series, an ongoing effort to publish new writers on the intersection of sports and politics.

To get this number, the Post’s polling team questioned 504 self-identified Native Americans from all 50 states. Given that I have 50 first cousins who are enrolled in the Navajo and Yankton Dakota Sioux Nations, none of whom likes the team name, I found the results to be curious. When I looked more closely at the methodology of the poll, I was appalled.

First and foremost, the Post states clearly that they did not verify the actual Native American identity or tribal enrollment of its respondents. Unlike most “minorities,” non-Native Americans have often declared themselves Native American with little or no factual evidence or cultural connection whatsoever. Furthermore, 56 percent of those asked said they were not part of any tribal nation or could not name what tribe their ancestors claimed. Imagine asking 500 white Americans for an opinion about Europe and not caring that more than half had no connection to their ancestors’ place of origin.

When asked about this (via e-mail), Scott Clement, the polling director at the Post responded:

We see little reason to suspect respondents would intentionally misreport their racial identity or tribal status to a confidential survey. The overall poll results suggest respondents understood a distinction between racial identification and tribal membership, given that a majority of self-identified Native Americans said they were not enrolled. The substantive questions about the team’s name came at the end of polls on other subjects and after survey respondents already had self-identified, leaving no motive (or even opportunity) for individuals to self-identify as Native American when they learned that the questions would center on the team’s name.

Leaving aside the issues of “self-identification,” there is also a problem with demographics. More than half, 274, were over the age of 50. Native Americans have a median age of 26—nearly 10 years younger than the general American population. The Post claims that they “weighted” the results to make sure that those over 50 were given just 39 percent of the voice. But even with “weighting,” by speaking primarily to people over 50—and then including their quotes in the piece as representative of the survey—the Post presented an inaccurate portrait of who we are as a people.

Male respondents also outnumbered female ones, which was quite a feat as Native American men have the highest mortality rates in the country. I remember when my dad was in his 50s and he went back to his reservation in South Dakota and was shocked to realize he was the only Yankton Dakota man left from his high-school class.

Furthermore, only 76, or 15 percent, of respondents were under the age of 29—and none of the respondents were under 18. Clement said that the Post never polls people under 18. “Our national surveys typically interview the adult population both for its relevance to voting and political participation and practical difficulties in reaching respondents who are younger than that age, i.e. ethical considerations about obtaining parental permission to participate.”

But not polling this segment of the population means the results exclude the Native American students who attend the 2,000 high schools in this country that mascot Native Americans. The White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education report [PDF] recounts firsthand experiences of Native youth facing discrimination in their learning environment caused by mascotting.

Aside from demographics, there was also the geographic distribution of the poll. Very few were from areas of the country where most Native American people reside. Only 12 percent of those polled were from the Mountain region where 18 out of 20 of the most heavily populated Native American reservation communities are, according to the US Census. However, 36 percent of the respondents were from the South, where in 1836 most of the Native American population was forcibly marched out on the Trail of Tears. Now, according to the Census, only 13 percent of the total estimated population of Native Americans lives in the South. Clement said that this did not affect their results, e-mailing, “Respondents in the Mountain region were among the most likely to report enrollment with a tribe (67 percent did so), but the share who said the Washington Redskins’ team name was offensive was little different from the overall results (8 percent).”

Brian Pollard, board member of the Native American Journalists Association and former Cherokee Phoenix editor said to me, “What they’ve created is a piece of data that drives a narrative they desired. This is pretty much frowned upon in the world of journalism to create a story in this way. It would be different if Stanford did a poll and The Washington Post covered it. That to me would be much more ethical from a journalistic standpoint. But this was way beyond that. This was something they manufactured from the beginning.”

Even if the poll was conducted perfectly and even if the results had been completely reversed, The Washington Post did a grave disservice by utterly ignoring studies that clearly demonstrate the harm mascotting causes to Native youth—the most vulnerable population in the country by almost any statistic.

Our young people have a rate of suicide 2.5 times higher than average. According to the American Psychological Association, which has called for the ending of the practice of mascotting, Native youth suffer measurably lower self-esteem after exposure to a Native American mascot. It also found that Native respondents who claim to be okay with Native mascots actually experience a greater drop in self-esteem. This finding is particularly relevant to the Washington Post poll, which has been widely interpreted as proof that there’s no harm in using the slur for a $2 billion NFL franchise in the nation’s capital.

On Friday the Native American Journalist Association in conjunction with UNITY: Journalists of Diversity issued a statement criticizing the poll for violating the tenet to “minimize harm” in reporting.

The reporters and editors behind this story must have known that it would be used as justification for the continued use of these harmful, racist mascots. They were either willfully malicious or dangerously naïve in the process and reporting used in this story, and neither is acceptable from any journalistic institution…. It is NAJA’s position that journalism should only be practiced when it is in the interest of public enlightenment and democracy, and should never be used as a tool of racial oppression or corporate cheerleading.

Scott Clement responded to NAJA, writing:

The Post pursued this poll without any idea as to how it would turn out and had no vested interest in the outcome. When activists argue that Native Americans are offended by the name—and when debate over the name is at the center of a major public-policy debate—it’s entirely appropriate for a news organization to conduct a survey to test any assertions made about the breadth and depth of offense among Native Americans. This is customary for any other public policy issue.”

But is this really customary? Are pollsters judging the “breadth and depth” of how offensive other dictionary-defined slurs are? Tragically, it is only Native Americans who have to suffer this kind of humiliation, especially when the multibillion-dollar brand of the paper’s local football team hangs in the balance.

Jacqueline KeelerTWITTERJacqueline Keeler is a Navajo/Yankton Dakota Sioux writer living in Portland, Oregon and co-founder of Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry (creators of the hashtag #NotYourMascot). She is finishing a collection of essays called Not Your Disappearing Indian and editing an anthology of Native voices for Torrey House Press on preserving sacred lands.

wv wrote:

Never even heard of that film. I’ll have to check it out.

w
v

Actually the whole film is on youtube.

.@WashingtonNFL Head Coach Ron Rivera says the team's colors will not change.

"To change the colors would kind of distract from what this team has done in terms, of its past history, with the championships that its won." — @RiverboatRonHC pic.twitter.com/xmGGEjk4vE

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) July 24, 2020

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Ron Rivera: Washington NFL team 'not close' on new name, process will take 16-18 months https://t.co/S3b3HQvlJk

— Joe Curley (@vcsjoecurley) July 24, 2020

I’d like to know WHY it takes 18 months to figure out a name
for a football team?

Its a football team.

w
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the numbers are being added to new helmets 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/feCyO2sBqG

— Washington Football Team (@WashingtonNFL) August 5, 2020

Minority owners of the Washington Football Team are reportedly pressuring owner Dan Snyder to sell the franchise https://t.co/0f7TFoY3pD

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) August 13, 2020