Still, Snyder has vowed never to change the moniker and has used the 12-year-old Annenberg poll to defend his position. And, perhaps in direct response to this, letters have been sent, petitions have been filed, and objectives have been voiced over the entirety of the past two years, resulting in the United States Patent Office canceling the National Football League franchise’s trademark registration, saying that the “Redskins” term is, indeed, derogatory.
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Interestingly, The Washington Post’s editorial board voted to stop using the team’s name in late 2014.
“That is the $64,000 question”, she said.
Notah Begay Jr., retired from Indian Health Services and father of pro golfer Notah B egay III, told the Journal he understands there are mixed feelings among Native Americans regarding the name.
90 percent said “does not bother”, 9 percent said it was offense, and 1 percent had no opinion.
Washington’s owner, Dan Snyder, has long resisted calls to change the team’s name, and said the poll backed up his stance. Or that Democrats in Washington that attempted to extort Snyder into changing the name with the prospects of a new stadium wanted to burnish their own social-justice cred at the expense of reality?
“Changing the mascot of the D.C. team should not be determined by public opinion”, the National Congress of American Indians, which represents tribal communities in the US, said in a statement to the Washington Post in 2014, adding that the group has repeatedly condemned the name.
The results of this poll are consistent with previous polls showing that most Native Americans aren’t bothered by the team’s name, nor do they consider it an important issue facing their community.
The poll surveyed 504 Native Americans from all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It has a 5.5 percent margin of error.
The Washington Post noted that the lead plaintiff in the first case challenging the team’s trademark protections dismissed the findings.
“I don’t accept self-identification”, Harjo, a member of the Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee tribes, told the Post.
The Post then asked: “If a NON-Native American person called you a Redskin, would you be personally offended, or not?” Those of us who are leaders in Indian Country… know who we are representing. Let us know what you think! And this is not the case here.
This most recent poll by The Washington Post adds one more dimension to a debate that has so far resisted a satisfactory solution. “I just reject the whole thing”.
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The Washington Post’s findings were immediately rebuffed by Dr. Adrianne Keene, a Native American writer behind the blog “Native Appropriations”.
