USA Today columnist Christine Brennan refuses to call the Washington Redskins by their given name in any of her writings.
“It’s not a cause, just a column,” Brennan said at a panel discussion at the University of Maryland on Wednesday.
“I’m not leading a march. I’m just voicing my opinion.”
Brennan, along with other columnists at the panel discussion, believe the Redskins’ name is offensive and needs to be changed.
“I don’t think it’s a slur, Webster’s dictionary thinks it’s a slur,” sports correspondent Dave Zirin said.
“Would we be comfortable with other slurs as team names?”
Although the name of the team has been an issue for some time, it has become a much bigger story in the past year.
Washington Post columnist Mike Wise thinks the story has gotten so big because of the celebrity status of quarterback Robert Griffin III. Nonetheless, RG3 has refused to give his opinion on the subject, prompting a discussion on the caution many athletes use when it comes to making their social views public.
“Why can’t a guy like this who is bubble wrapped by the media, and bubble wrapped by the NFL, stand up and say something about something that matters?” said Kevin Blackistone from ESPN’s Around the Horn.
It may be because Redskins owner Daniel Snyder wants to keep the name forever, Wise said.
“We will never change the name of the team,” Snyder told USA today in May. “It’s that simple. NEVER – you can use all caps.”
Zirin pointed out that the name could be connected to larger issues in Native American communities.
“When you mascot a people it is easy to then sort of turn your eye and not notice the reality of how people live,” Zirin said.
Native American populations have high rates of poverty, infant mortality rates, sub-standard education and alcoholism, Zirin continued.
The student panelist, Daniel Gallen, a senior sports editor for The Diamondback, truly realized the implications of the name after going to a basketball game at a high school on a reservation. He observed the Native American players participating in pregame rituals often copied by other teams, and felt that certain things needed to be kept solely for them.
Brennan, Zirin, and Blackistone all agree that the Redskins name will change eventually, but it is hard to say how long it will take for change to be made.
Even though over half of the audience at the discussion raised their hands in support of the change, a recent poll in the Washington Post said 75 percent of Redskins fans are against changing the name.