A memo to all those so obsessed with political correctness that you think the current woes of the Washington Redskins result from some kind of curse involving the team’s name: Get ye a grip. This is not a defense of a word many, if not most, Native Americans find offensive. I’m sure they do.
For that reason alone the name should have been changed years ago. (George Preston Marshall, who formed the team with some co-owners in 1932, changed the name from the Boston Braves to the Boston Redskins in 1932. Marshall also resisted having black players on the team, holding out until Bobby Mitchell came on board in 1961.)
Yes, “redskin” is probably a racist term. No, it doesn’t have a thing to do with the team’s current 5-9 record.
If that were the case, how do those politically correct football fans account for the
three Super Bowls the team known as the Washington Redskins have already won? Only three teams — the Pittsburgh Steelers, the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys — have won more Super Bowls. The Washington you-know-whos are tied with four other teams that have also won three Super Bowls: the New England Patriots, the New York Giants, the Green Bay Packers and the Oakland Raiders. If the you-know-whos are jinxed because of their name, then why have they had more Super Bowl success than 24 other teams in the National Football League?
Washington’s football team jinxed? The Minnesota Vikings have been to four Super Bowls and lost them all. So have the Buffalo Bills.
Any jinx there? I think not; they just lost to better teams.
What about the poor Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions, who were in the league when the Super Bowl started but who have yet to even make an appearance? (Neither have the Houston Texans or the Jacksonville Jaguars, but those are relatively new franchises.) If any football team is jinxed, it’s those poor, hapless Lions, whose fans must be the bravest souls in America.
If a team’s success were linked to its name, the New Orleans Saints should have won a bundle of Super Bowls by now. They finally did last year, but older football fans that remember the years of Saints gridiron futility see last February’s victory as a sure sign of the Apocalypse.
The “Redskins-jinx” theory is, to put it kindly, a stretch. But that’s not what bothers me the most about the politically correct bunch that constantly call for the team to change its name.
I guarantee you that many of the same ones who find the term “redskins” offensive settle in to watch reruns of “The Sopranos” when they get home, or tune in to “Jersey Shore.”
Those are two television shows that ruthlessly stereotype Italian-Americans. At least two Italian-American organizations — the National Italian American Foundation and UNICO National — have called on MTV execs to yank “Jersey Shore” off the air. The reason?
The show’s “stars” — it’s a reality show, so I’m using the word “stars” guardedly here — frequently toss around the word “guido.”
In fact, MTV honchos thought it would be a cute idea to use the “g” word in spots promoting the show. Jersey Shore, MTV promised viewers, would “expose one of the tri-state’s most misunderstood species: the
guido.” America’s politically correct posse have completely missed the boat when it comes to getting the entertainment industry to ratchet down its stereotyping and degrading of Italian-Americans. Why is the term “redskin” more offensive than “guido”? Because Italian-Americans are considered white?
Isn’t
that a form of racism? Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
