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| lastangryfan.com |
As you all know ( or should know...read some earlier posts, would ya?) I am an avid Washington R*dsk*ns fan. I've written articles on why Peyton Manning should have come to DC and why RG3 is my guy (good thing we never got Peyton!). I've also written an article based around a possible name change for my beloved team. This topic seems to come up fairly often. It peaks during the off-season and then by the time September rolls around, the sports media is too busy with the game to worry about such silly matters as a team name. This off-season, however, the criticism seems to have stuck to the wall a little more than usual.
Pundits are talking about the racist team name in the mainstream media. ESPN has conducted full conversations and polls about the feelings on this name. Even the US Federal Government has gotten in on the issue. Ten members of congress have written letters to every NFL team, commissioner Roger Goodell, FedEx (the stadium sponsor) and Dan Snyder, the owner himself. In these letters they show disgust for the use of the word (only referring to it as the R-word) and compare it to the N-word.
Dan Snyder seems to have disregarded these letters and has vowed to never change the team's name.
This whole process seems eerily familiar to me.
Flashback just over 50 years to 1962. The team were the picture of mediocrity. They hadn't made the playoffs since their 1946 NFL Championship loss to the Cleveland Rams. They were based around showmanship first. Their owner, George Preston Marshall, did for the team what Jerry Buss did for the "Showtime" Lakers. He made coming to the game a full entertainment event. Performers of all kinds played at the games and people came in droves. Marshall was a marketing genius who knew how to operate a successful business venture.
But Marshall was far from the Patron Saint of our nation's capital. He had many flaws and was not afraid to let them be known. One of the most reviled and the one that was most relevant was his racism.
Marshall said he wouldn't let a black football player play on his team.
He was chided by his fellow owners and pressured by the league and the US government but he would not change his view. Marshall was a very competitive man and wanted his team to be the best no matter what, but even with this as his goal and several of the great African American players of the era coming through the draft, he would not budge.
That is until league pressure and government stipulations grew to great. The team wanted to build a stadium on government land. But the officials in charge were no fans of Marshall's white supremacy. The NFL was also signing a large TV deal at the time, and the rest of the owners urged commissioner Pete Rozelle to reason with Marshall. After their conversation, Marshall said he would likely be drafting a top black player the upcoming year. They were promised their federal land under the circumstances that they did indeed desegregate.
And now some 50 years later, we have our heads stuck in similar sand.
I'm sure Marshall wouldn't have called himself a racist. He had his reasons for what he did.
Washington was one of the first teams in the "South". Marshall felt he had a responsibility to represent the south.
“We take most of our players out of Southern colleges and are trying to appeal to Southern people,” Marshall told The New York Times in 1961. “Those colleges don’t have any Negro players.”
He felt that people would reject them if they had a black player. Much like many people feel the team would be rejected if a name change were to happen. Snyder wants to maintain the great tradition of the past. I wonder how much of that past he truly knows about. If it were me, I'd want to distance myself a great deal from that past.
People protested and picketed and boycotted the games. It rallied people from all walks of life. Sports fans or not, if you believed in the cause you took a stand against "Old DC". It made the government take notice.It began to forge the heavy hand it took a heavy hand to make happen what we know now to be right.
In an age where government intervention in such matters would be seen as a ludicrous overreach of power, this kind of thing could not happen. So the Native Americans spread out all over the country shall be offended by a derogatory name. In a nation where racism is supposedly on the out and all men are treated equal under the law, this is what a small amount of people are forced to endure.
A small amount of people, but people none the less.
ESPN conducted a poll a few months ago (when the conversation was at its peak, before the preseason began) about the offensiveness of the name. Surprisingly, a minority of people found the name of offensive. Surprising, especially when you consider that the people who would be offended are only 1.7% of the population. (Note Sarcasm here.)
A small amount of people, but people none the less.
With a government more insistent on arguing about problems than solving them; With a commissioner more interested in covering his law suit-embroiled ass than improving the game for fans; with an NFL owners association to afraid too lose a dime if they upset the apple cart for what is right; this is what happens.
Can people today protest? Of course. Can we petition and boycott? Absolutely. But is that what the team wants? Is that what the NFL wants? To make fans feel uncomfortable about rooting for their favorite teams? I know that's how I feel. I love the players. I love the coaches. RG3 is by far my favorite quarterback in the league to watch. Alfred Morris is a beast and I can't wait to see how he fares this year. Orakpo, Kerrigan, Fletcher and the rest of the defense give me chills when they step on the field. I love the team. I hate the logo. I don't want to be forced to make a stand against the team I love. I would simply like the team I love to do the right thing.
There will come a time when the R*dsk*ns change their name. It will no doubt be by force. People will cry foul and all the news stations will discuss the injustice and the second that "the fed went too far". There were protests even after Marshall added the first black player, this time by the KKK.
But in 50 years, hopefully we can look back at the new named team, and wonder: "Why did it take so long."
Citation:
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-10.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/sports/football/50-years-ago-redskins-were-last-nfl-team-to-integrate.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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