The Washington Redskins Might Get a Name Change. Why Now?
Written by B87FM on July 3, 2020
By the point they take the sector this fall — that’s assuming there’s a season given the coronavirus pandemic — the Nationwide Soccer League workforce in Washington, D.C., might need a brand new nickname.
“In gentle of latest occasions round our nation and suggestions from our group, the Washington Redskins are saying the workforce will bear a radical evaluation of the workforce’s identify,” the workforce mentioned in a press release Friday morning. The temporary assertion, which itself included the phrase “redskins” seven occasions, additionally mentioned the workforce had been discussing its identify with the N.F.L. for weeks.
{That a} day may come when the workforce would change its identify, which many take into account to be a racist slur in opposition to Native People, has long seemed unfathomable. “We’ll by no means change the identify,” Dan Snyder, the workforce’s proprietor, said in 2013. “It’s that easy. By no means — you should use caps.”
The change to that ironclad stance got here simply someday after two distinguished company sponsors, FedEx and Nike, started backing away from the workforce’s identify, which rapidly prompted others to comply with swimsuit on Friday.
Snyder has been steadfast in his insistence to maintain the identify, even within the face of governmental and activist strain to vary it. The one entity with sufficient affect to pressure the difficulty, the N.F.L., has at all times backed Snyder. Two years in the past, N.F.L. commissioner Roger Goodell said that the workforce’s identify ought to stay and that the league wouldn’t make him change it.
However within the final month, the bottom beneath their ft has shifted. American society is present process a large rebellion over police brutality and systemic racism that flared after the killing of George Floyd in police custody, a widespread motion that has led to a reconsideration of statues, flags, symbols and mascots thought of to be racist or celebrating racist historical past.
Statues of troopers who fought for the Confederacy through the Civil Battle are being taken down throughout the nation. The governor of Mississippi signed a bill to take away the Accomplice battle emblem from its flag, partially due to pressure from sports organizations. Company mascots like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are being phased out.
Lengthy accustomed to doing no matter it happy on account of its huge reputation, the N.F.L. has scrambled to maintain up with quickly evolving public opinion. Final month, Goodell apologized for not listening to issues from the league’s Black gamers earlier, and he inspired them to peacefully protest — an about face from years of making an attempt to stop gamers from kneeling through the taking part in of the nationwide anthem earlier than video games to protest racism.
On Friday, Goodell indicated the league has been discussing a change with Washington. “In the previous few weeks now we have had ongoing discussions with Dan and we’re supportive of this essential step,” he mentioned in a press release.
In line with a league spokesman, altering the identify doesn’t require a vote by the league’s house owners, and in the end the choice is as much as Snyder. Previously, he had the assist of Goodell, to not point out workforce and league sponsors that collectively pay billions yearly, in rejecting requires change. This time, nevertheless, Snyder would possibly discover his place extra lonely.
Already, the workforce has shifted itself in the way it celebrates a racist previous.
Final month, Washington mentioned it might take away the identify of George Preston Marshall from the workforce’s Ring of Fame and its historical past wall, and a statue of him was faraway from outdoors RFK Stadium, the place the workforce used to play in Washington. Marshall based the workforce and moved them to Washington within the 1930s, and was the final N.F.L. proprietor to combine his workforce.
When the workforce modified its identify in 1933 from the Braves, Marshall told team members to wear face paint and the coach to put on feathers on the sideline. He additionally had an Indian-head emblem printed throughout participant uniforms and used a halftime band that wore tribal regalia.
Nonetheless, there was little indication that the workforce’s consideration of its identify may comply with carefully behind its distancing from Marshall. As just lately as Monday, Ron Rivera, the workforce’s new coach, said during a radio interview that speaking concerning the workforce’s identify was “a dialogue for one more time” and that he was “simply any individual that’s from a unique period when soccer wasn’t such a giant a part of the political scene.”
On Friday, he was quoted in Washington’s assertion saying “this problem is of private significance to me.”
What has modified previously 4 days? Maybe the price of holding the identify, as sponsors started to talk up.
In a brief however pointed assertion Thursday that didn’t use the workforce’s identify, the transport firm FedEx mentioned it had requested for the identify to be modified. “Now we have communicated to the workforce in Washington our request that they modify the workforce identify,” FedEx mentioned in a press release.
FedEx isn’t simply any previous sponsor of the workforce. For the final twenty years Washington has performed its dwelling video games at FedEx Discipline, in a Maryland suburb outdoors of the District of Columbia. FedEx agreed to pay $205 million within the naming rights deal in 1999. Frederick W. Smith, the chairman and chief govt of FedEx, can also be a minority proprietor of the workforce.
The workforce’s lease for FedEx Discipline runs by way of 2027, however lately it has begun the method of looking for a brand new stadium, canvassing websites in Maryland, Virginia and Washington. The Washington Put up has reported {that a} stadium in Washington is Snyder’s choice, however this week native elected officers said that a return to the district is off the desk except the workforce’s identify modified.
The workforce’s merchandise additionally disappeared from Nike’s on-line retailer Thursday. Reached Friday, a Nike spokesman declined to say why.
Different workforce sponsors have been publicly silent concerning the identify for years, however after the announcement Friday they had been fast to laud the workforce’s obvious change of coronary heart. Pepsi mentioned they’d been talking with the workforce and the N.F.L. “for a number of weeks about this problem,” whereas Financial institution of America mentioned they’ve “inspired the workforce to vary the identify.”
There was no timeline given for when Washington would decide on its identify, solely that it might come after enter from “our alumni, the group, sponsors, the Nationwide Soccer League and the area people.”
Native People, and Native American activists like Suzan Shown Harjo who has spent a long time pushing groups and faculties to vary American Indian names and mascots, weren’t talked about as these whose views can be thought of.
