Why we should all hail the Redskins

This week the Washington Post editorial board decided that it will no longer use the word ‘Redskins’ when referring to the Washington football team that has used the name for the past 80 years. The team name is a ‘slur’ and offends many, the editors say. The new policy will apply to editorials only, not the news and sports sections of the newspaper.

However, the vast majority of Americans – about eight in 10, according to polls – are opposed to changing the team’s name. It even appears that most Native Americans, perhaps up to 90 per cent, are either not bothered by the name or see it as a compliment. A number of Native American high-school teams call themselves the Redskins.

There’s a good reason why most people are against changing the name: common sense. The anti-Redskins campaigners are cut off from the real world. Everyone but a small minority recognise that there is no racist intent or malice behind the name. Fans of the team have used the name with pride since it was introduced in the 1930s.

There is also something really odd and worrying about trying to claim the name is offensive: it seeks to re-write history. A team name that has had entirely positive connotations for decades, which is part of NFL tradition and lore, is now deemed offensive. That means that every time thousands of fans sing the fight song ‘Hail to the Redskins’ after a touchdown, they are supposedly engaging in a racist act. We are all now meant to feel guilty about uttering the innocuous name.

This PC policing of language ignores history and context. To today’s guardians of speech, the word is inherently a slur, no matter the intent or situation. The term has not led to violent attacks on Native Americans, or other forms of abuse or discrimination. In fact, at the moment, Native Americans are widely held in high regard in American society. Although ‘Redskins’ is claimed to be disparaging, the name has had no negative effect on Native Americans.

The campaign is part of a wider censorious climate in the US. As in other cases, it is assumed that the feelings of offence felt by a group, however small, should trump other people’s freedom to speak and associate freely. But no group has a ‘right’ not to be offended; the campaign is a call for sensitivity dressed up in the terminology of ‘rights’. If this view becomes accepted, it will open the floodgates to new forms of censorship, as anyone with hurt feelings can claim that others must be silenced.

The anti-Redskins campaign displays a low opinion of fans, who are deemed to be promoters of a racist slur. It is a crusade driven by an elite desire to impose a particular vision of moral purity upon the masses

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