Do Native Americans oppose the name Washington Redskins the way so many sportswriters do? Quick answer: No. The Washington Post has gone to the trouble of conducting a nationwide survey of Native Americans, the first since 2004. The results:
“Nine in 10 Native Americans say they are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, according to a new Washington Post poll that shows how few ordinary Indians have been persuaded by a national movement to change the football team’s moniker.
“The survey of 504 people across every state and the District reveals that the minds of Native Americans have remained unchanged since a 2004 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found the same result. Responses to the Post’s questions about the issue were broadly consistent regardless of age, income, education, political party or proximity to reservations.
“Among the Native Americans reached over a five-month period ending in April, more than 7 in 10 said they did not feel the word ‘Redskin’ was disrespectful to Indians. An even higher number — 8 in 10 — said they would not be offended if a non-native called them that name.”
So opposition to the “Redskins” label comes from a small percentage of people of Native American ancestry and to a large percentage of elite sportscasters like Bob Costas and Christine Brennan. I guess they’re entitled to avoid the term, however awkward that might sometimes be, if they find it offensive; I don’t like the idea of pressuring people to use language that is unpalatable to them for some reason, but I think it can also be argued that big-bucks journalists like Costas and Brennan could be required to use terms that make things clear to their audiences.
In any case, the Post poll pretty much puts the kibosh on the idea that changing the name of the “Washington NFL team” is some kind of grand progressive cause. It may appeal to Barack Obama and other Democratic politicians and to wannabe left-wingers in sports journalism. But it doesn’t have any appeal to a very large majority of Americans of Native American ancestry or ethnicity.
My own view is that people tend to name teams and other things for people (or animals) they find in some way admirable. They don’t name them after things they hate or find despicable. Maybe that’s not the case with arguably whimsical team names, like the minor league baseball team the Lansing Lug Nuts. (Though you wouldn’t want to drive your car if it didn’t have lug nuts on the wheels, I think.)
I think this is true in the cases of the costumes depicted by campus grievance collectors as “cultural appropriation.” The argument is apparently that there’s something demeaning about students who are not of Mexican descent wearing Mexican-style sombreros to an evening party. But why should sombrero wearing require a particular DNA? Don’t we want people to appreciate cultures beyond those to which we have some biological connection? What better way to develop an appreciation than to learn more about that culture? Sure, you can say that wearing a sombrero doesn’t teach you much about Mexico, but it’s a start, and why assume that it is a hostile act or one intended to demean the culture that produced the sombrero?
