It's a losing battle. It's hopeless. After all, my family, my very liberal family, is full of wonderful people who are huge R&dsk#ns fans. On facebook, they post updates on RGIII's health, pictures of themselves at the games in team sweatshirts, triumphant blasts after a winning game, disappointed eulogies at losses (particularly the last one in the playoffs). Tonight my beloved nephew and his equally wonderful wife will be here for dinner -- and they are huge R$dsk@ns fans. On my husband's side, his lively niece and her terrific husband are just as devoted to the Washington team as my nephew and his wife.
So what happens when I bring up the offensive nature of the Washington football team's name to a family member who would explode with anger if other racial epithets were used -- they roll their eyes and walk away.
But today I got some support -- today Mike Wise wrote a wonderful column in the Washington Post entitled:
Only RGIII can make the Redskins change their name. Here’s why he won’t.
He starts with this perfect paragraph:
Before he lay in a hospital bed, convalescing after reconstructive knee surgery, I thought that Robert Griffin III would be the perfect person to take on a problem that’s been plaguing Washington for decades: our football team’s ill-considered, objectionable, offensive, racist, totally unacceptable name.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
While I love Wise's column, the huge weight of blame sits directly on Dan Snyder, the pigly owner of the Washington team. The guy who used his deep pockets to influence the National Park Service so that he could cut down 130 trees and get an unobstructed view of the Potomac river -- causing a massive erosion problem on the hillside above our river. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/... and http://blog.washingtonpost.com/...
If you want a compendium of the hubris and bad judgement of this guy, just read this rant: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/...
(It's not surprising that Snyder and his wife are supporters of Romney and the Republicans. While, contrary to media reports, they did not host a big Romney fundraiser, they contributed a decent sized chunk to the party and to Romney. http://www.washingtonian.com/... )
With an owner like that, I have no expectations of enough conscience or caring to result in a name change.
But I wish like hell that the good people I know, the people who would rise up in anger at any of the epithets I put in the title of this diary, would at least begin to admit that the name of the team is offensive and ugly.
p.s. In the comments on Wise's column, among the usual crap, there was actually some good criticism -- suggesting that instead of laying this responsibility on a young player, the Washington Post could take a stand and refuse to use the name of the team in the paper and just refer to them as the Washington football team:
Daniel W. Keiper
9:38 AM EST
Forget Washington's quarterback leading any kind of charge to change the name of the franchise. If the Washington Post wanted to stake out a principaled position on this issue, they could refrain from publishing the team name, as they do on the regular, and instead just refer to the team as "Wasington". This would be a big step towards removing this racial slur from public discourse. Would that Mike Wise and Courtland Malloy work to pressure their bosses to move in this direction, as Mike Wise infers that Griffin should do with his, rather than publish columns that only end up "preaching to the choir" and annoying others. Clean up your own backyard first!