The name, Washington Redskins,
have an intriguing history. They started
off as the Boston Braves in 1932, then in 1933 changed their name to the Boston
Redskins. The owner, George Marshall
changed the named reportedly in honor of the then Head Coach William Henry "Lone
Star" Dietz, who claimed to be an Indian.
Now George Marshall and Dietz
both have a provocative past. A lot of Marshall’s
actions while owner of the Redskins were likely racist, and the heritage of
Dietz being an Indian were questioned as early as 1918.
George Marshall, as owner of the
Washington Redskins, was the last team to integrate the team with a black ball
player. Marshall stated that he would
hire black players when the Harlem Globetrotters hired white players. But apparently Marshall did not know the
history of the Globetrotters. There have
been several white players for the globetrotters dating back to 1942, when Bob
Karstens played while Reece "Goose" Tatum was drafted into the
military. But in 1962, the US government
issued an ultimatum — unless Marshall signed a black player, the government
would revoke the Redskins' 30-year lease on the year-old D.C. Stadium, which
had been paid for by government money and was owned by the Washington city
government (which, then and now, is formally an arm of the federal
government). In his personal life,
Marshall created a foundation that left $6 Million dollars with the
qualification that none of the money could be used "for any purpose which
supports or employs the principles of racial integration."
Dietz's Indian heritage was allegedly first contested in
1916 after former neighbors who settled on the Pacific Coast heard he was
posing as an Indian. In December 1918
the Federal Bureau of Investigation looked into his heritage after he
fraudulently registered for the draft as a "Non-Citizen Indian" with
an allotment. The Bureau found he had
taken on the identity of James One Star, an Oglala man of the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, 12 years his senior who had disappeared in 1894. Dietz was tried in Spokane, Washington in
June of 1919. Dietz's mother
Leanna purportedly claimed he was the Indian son of her husband who had been
switched a week or more after she had a stillbirth. Dietz's acting ability
along with his mother's fallacious testimony (to protect him from prison)
resulted in a hung jury, but Dietz was immediately re-indicted.
It is pretty clear that Marshall was a racist against blacks
but its unclear how he felt about Indians.
Did he know of Dietz's history?
Did he know if Dietz was truly an Indian or if he were white? Did Marshall name the Redskins as a racial
slur or did he truly want to honor Indians?
To me, just because a word may have been used in a
derogatory way in the past, doesn't mean that it can't become a word of
honor. And it goes the other way also;
there are words that in the past that did not have a derogatory meaning, but
today they do. Some examples of this
are:
“Faggot”,
means kindling (as in material to start a fire) but today has a derogatory
meaning to it.
“Bitch”, is
a female dog, but today is usually use in a derogatory way.
The “N”
word was not originally used to be derogatory.
It was a term that the world used to describe a race of people. But
today it is used as a derogatory term.
The term “Yankee” began as a derogatory
term, but has been adopted proudly by the named group.
The same goes for “Punk”. When I was young it was always considered a
derogatory term, but with the Punk Rock era, it became a term that a group of people
embraced.
Now you are hearing the
white liberal PC Crowd saying that if you don’t find the term offensive, then
you just have no idea what it means. So let’s
get this straight, the white PC Crowd is telling the American Indians that they
don’t know what a term that has everything to do with them, that they don’t know
what Redskins mean??
There was a study done back
in 2004 by the Annenberg Foundation that surveyed the American Indians and
found that 9 of 10 have no problem with the football team using the term
Redskins.
As a white person and a Redskins fan in 2013, I don't think
it is up to me if the Redskins should change their name, I don’t think it’s up
to the NFL if the Redskins should change their name, I don't think it is up to
the white PC police if the Redskins should change their name, and it is not up
the US government if the Redskins should change their name.
It is up to the Indian Nations in America. If 9 of 10 found it offensive, it should be
changed. If 6 of 10 found it offensive,
it should be changed. But it’s only 1 in
10 that don’t like it.
And until the majority of American Indians find the term
offensive, the white PC police need to just shut up…….
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