So Dan Snyder got 50 letters from Senators asking him to change the name.

I’m personally not that bothered by the name, but feel it should probably just get changed if it’s going to cause this much fuss. I grew up in Ravens/Redskins territory, so the name Redskins never bothered me. I never even thought about it till after college. It was a name ingrained to me. To me, Redskins was the name of a football team, and it represented Native Americans and the team celebrated the culture. By wearing feathers and shouting war whoops.

I still think that, really. I do not believe the name was ever intended to harm, and while the usage of Native American symbols for merchandise and marketing is a little tacky I still don’t think it was ever done as an insult, even on a team with a history of racism like the Skins (The last team to integrate). I’m just not that bothered by it. Whether they change the name or not I’m largely indifferent to. Thanks to all my years rooting against the Skins, I’ll probably always call them the Skins anyway. Or just refer to them as Washington.

This is a difficult situation to bring up, because I’m sure, in some ways, maybe the reason I’m not bothered is because I’m a suburban born white dude. I was never marginalized by a team name. My culture isn’t bastardized and marketed to sell tickets. There is no team called “The Honkeys” or “The Crackers” (Except maybe the Ritz Cracker factory company softball team). So maybe I just don’t get it because it doesn’t really affect me at all. There also isn’t a Native presence in DC or the east coast at all. Out here in the west where I now live, I meet a lot more, and driving through a reservation can really drive home the points you never really experienced reading history books. It’s one thing to read about what we did, it’s another to see the effects, even decades later.

I think ultimately the word is a slur, or can very much be used/confused as one. They probably should change it. If it bothers that many people, including those Native tribes we have mistreated, then why not. Throw them a bone for once. It won’t affect most of us in any meaningful way, so why not? What’s the harm? Why insist on keeping a name that might be degrading for tradition’s sake? It might have been made to honor those people, but at this point is it anymore? Doesn’t seem like it.

Also I like watching Dan Snyder squirm so anything that makes him uncomfortable is okay in my book.