Robert Griffin III probably said it best — In a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.
This was his Twitter response in late April to the name change debate that always hits the Washington Redskins near the beginning of football season when a small minority find reason to protest the team’s nickname, a nickname that has stood since 1933.
ESPN keeps hammering this matter and Wednesday 10 members of Congress wrote Redskins owner Dan Snyder demanding he change the team’s name.
For twice in my life — the hiring of Mike Shanahan as coach being the first — I stand with Dan and his decision to not surrender to the whims of the politically correct when it does nothing to alter history and has never been brought up as an issue with fans.
In his 1997 book, The Name Game, Michael Leo Donovan explains the names of football, baseball, basketball and hockey teams.
In the section on the Redskins, he explains, as all fans of the team should know, the team was originally located in Boston and was named the Braves. They were renamed in 1933 to differentiate between the Boston Braves of the National League in baseball and the football Braves.
The team retained the name when it relocated to Washington in 1937.
“Over the long history of the Washington Redskins,” Donovan writes, “The name has reflected positive attributes of the American Indian such as dedication, courage and pride.”
He continues, “The Redskins have become an institution in the nation’s capital and the team’s popularity brings the community together. Because of the respect that goes with the name Redskins, the team has never been referred to by any other name.”
So let’s not go too overboard and practice over zealousness when the owner of the team refuses to part with a tradition that over the years has never focused on negativity and saw the words of the fight song — Hail to the Redskins — changed to filter out perhaps the only negative connotation, that being taking out the words scalp ‘em.
Redskins’ fans don’t do the tomahawk chop, they don’t scream war cries and most don’t dress in war paint, Western plains headdress or any other dress stereotypical of Native Americans.
The Redskins could simply fold like their NBA counterparts did, caving to political pressure and reinventing themselves as the Wizards, a weak, ineffectual name that seems to have plagued the team since the change in 1995.
Maybe congress should focus on what it’s supposed to do — make laws that protect this nation rather than focusing on terrorizing a business.
Maybe Republican Congressman Tom Cole, one of those who signed their name to the letter, should think about the name of his own state — Oklahoma — that means red people.
And why just focus on the Redskins? Why not the Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Blackhawks?
Or we could take it an illogical step further and apply this way of thinking to the Carolina Hurricanes — don’t hurricanes kill people? — The New Orleans Saints — isn’t that a name that offends non-Christians — the Miami Dolphins — dolphin attacks do occur and their savagery amongst members of their own pod has been well documented.
So, I sit here today, wearing a Washington Redskins T-shirt as I write this, and stand with Griffin and Snyder and agree thoroughly that in a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness — Lance Martin
