A change is bound to come: The Redskins in 2020

I have a confession to make.

Though I have been a Washington Redskins fan since about 1970, during my teenage years (AKA, the ‘70s), I was more into basketball than football. That means I can tell you every starting five for the Maryland Terrapins and Baltimore/Washington Bullets throughout the 1970s.

I mention this because I have lived through one local sports team name change already. When the Bullets turned into the Wizards back in the late ‘90s, it was not the result of a long-standing protest against a name that offended a group of society.

Though some people did suggest that the name “Bullets” was inappropriate given the high number of gun deaths in the DC area, I don’t recall any serious clamoring for change. It was largely the result of owner Abe Pollin’s personal distaste for what he felt the name signified.

And I thought it was stupid.

I referred to the team by the name “Bullets” for about five years after the switch. And then I didn’t anymore. And in time, it simply didn’t matter.

I have refrained from weighing in on the Redskins name change issue because I don’t really think I have much to add to the thoughtful pieces already penned by Ian Cummings and Ken Johannesen. I hope I am not misrepresenting them (and I’m sure they will tell me if I am) when I say that one is a younger fan who is far more comfortable with a name change, and the other is a fan of my generation (I’m doing my best to avoid the term “older”), who would prefer the name remain as it has since 1933.

Both recognize the complexity of the issue, and I’m happy to see that neither resorts to name-calling or otherwise disparaging the intelligence or very manhood of people who have a different point of view.

Such is not always the case in debates like this.

The other reason I have kept my opinion to myself up until now, is that I know it is bound to anger people on both sides of this debate. Because to me, it just doesn’t matter that much.

I’m not saying it doesn’t matter at all. And I’m not saying that it doesn’t provoke understandable passion in the immediacy of the moment. I’m just saying moving forward, it doesn’t matter enough to me to go to war over.

About twenty years ago, if asked to vote on the issue, I would have voted for a name change. I was swayed back then by an inarguable historical record. The term “Redskin” is undeniably racist in origin, and that seemed fairly obvious to me. But then the polling came out. At first, polls commissioned by the Redskin organization suggested that Native Americans either were not offended by the word, or actually liked it. Such polls, commissioned by an organization with an expressed desire to keep the name, meant very little to me.

Then came the Washington Post poll of 2016, which overwhelmingly reached the same conclusion. That poll found around 90% of Native Americans do not find the term offensive. That appeared to end the debate, at least for a while.

But attitudes change, and sometimes they change very quickly. I’ve always believed that the affected group, in this case Native Americans, does not have the final say in determining whether the Redskins name stays or goes. But, and I cannot stress this enough, they do have the sole authority to determine whether the name offends them. I can’t think of anything more condescending than an outsider telling a Native American that she shouldn’t be offended because the Redskins name is intended to honor her tradition.

Nor does an outsider have the right to tell her that she should be offended if she is not.

These are all points which should be discussed. Sadly, we seem incapable of discussing them without resorting almost immediately to politicizing and name-calling.

The results of the 2016 poll left me in my current position of simply not caring very much about the name. But I recognize that a lot of people do not share my opinion on this. For every fan that I know (mostly, though not exclusively, older) who feels that changing the name will be a rejection of our very identity and a capitulation to out-of-control thought police, I know an equal number of fans (mostly, though not exclusively, younger) who genuinely believe the name to be an offensive reminder of the undeniable racism that has defined a significant part of the American experience.

The reason the 2016 poll is not the final word on this issue is that majorities do not always rule. We like to believe that they do because we like to tout our democratic philosophy. But you can find countless examples in which the will of the majority has been thwarted. And I would argue that if most Native Americans are ambivalent or apathetic about the Redskins name, and a smaller number are passionate about changing it, we need to at least listen to the minority.

Things are rarely as simple as ardent supporters on either side make them out to be.

I do agree with the prevailing opinion that the Redskins name will change. It may happen rather quickly. Economic forces are in play here. It took the federal government to force George Preston Marshall to integrate the team. It looks like it will take FedEx/Nike/Pepsi to force the name change. Such is the nature of our world.

Do not expect the debate to end with the name change. There will be a small, but passionate core of fans who will keep the name “Redskins” alive. If you want an idea of what is likely to happen, check out the recent history of the mascot at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After years of debate and protest, it took the economic leverage of the NCAA to force the university into dropping their Chief Illiniwek mascot – a costumed figure beloved by some, and offensive to others.

That was in 2007. The University has never chosen a replacement mascot. Many in the stands continue to sport clothing with references to the Chief and continue to perform his chants. He is gradually disappearing, and will one day vanish, but it is a long process (BTW, should you be interested in an in-depth look at this particular issue, Carol Spindel’s “Dancing at Halftime: Sports and the Controversy over American Indian Mascots,” provides an excellent overview. It was written in 2000, and is somewhat dated, but still worth a look).

One day, all the passions that we are feeling now will seem like a quaint memory. Some fans will defect. Most will not. And the anger will subside, to be replaced by a new target. Changing the name will not solve anything. But it is probably a necessary step. If you disagree, so be it. There are a lot of things I will fight over. This just isn’t one of them.

BTW – violent crimes rates did go down in Washington after the Bullets changed their name in 1997, continuing a trend that had begun in the early ‘90s. I’m not sure the basketball team’s name had very much to do with it.