Judge Sides With Redskins in Team Name Suit

[SC Skins Fan]

Originally Posted by mooby

No, it means nobody gave an ish about the Redskins being called that for 65 years until some Native Americans got pissed about it in the 90's/2000's. I would sympathize with them here but the fact that most Native Americans don't have a problem with it suggests to me that it's just a small group of Native Americans that are going out of their way to try and get rid of the name.

The reflexive response to the issue of Native American mascots is not particularly surprising given the forum, but I am more ambivalent (at best) and would make a few points.

1. It is incorrect to say that "nobody gave an ish about the Redskins being called that for 65 years." Much of the energy to fight the use of Native American mascots came out of the Civil Rights era and as early as 1972 Native Americans petitioned Washington Redskins lawyers to change the name and began attempting to meet with ownership, though no litigation began (because no viable strategy existed). (Suzan Shown Harjo, "Fighting Name Calling: Challenging 'Redskins in Court', 189-207, in C. Richard King and Charles Fruehling Springwood, eds., Team Spirits: The Native American Mascots Controversy [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001]). It seems disingenuous to claim that a minority group lacked the power or organization to launch a formal challenge so therefore no one must have cared.
2. It also seems dishonest to say that the courts "again" ruled in the Redskins favor. In 1999 a panel of three trademark judges ruled that the trademark registrations on the name Redskins "would be canceled in due course." The case was a culmination of a legal strategy begun in 1992 to challenge the trademark rights of the team name (one developed by Stephen R. Baird) under Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act which states, "No trademark...shall be refused registration on the principla register on account of its nature unless it - (a) Consists of or comprises ... scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage...persons...or bring them into contempt, or disrepute" (Harjo, 198, 203-205; see also and 15 USC 1052, Trademarks registrable on the principal register; concurrent registration (BitLaw)). The ruling was vacated in 2003 by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly who said that the plantiffs waited too long to file a challenge of the original 1967 trademark. It then went to the U.S. District Court of Appeals, who said that the youngest plantiff was only one year old in 1967 and thus too young to take legal action. The case was sent back to Kollar-Kotelly, whose latest ruling said that the plantiff had waited too long after reaching the age of majority (in 1984, lawsuit filed in 1992) to take legal action (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3483483). So basically one judge has twice ruled in the Redskins favor on what strikes me as a fairly specious premise.
3. Though you provide no evidence for your claim that "most Native Americans don't have a problem with it", I would be willing to bet that you probably have a point. I would also bet that the number is inversely proportional to socio-economic and educational status. That Native Americans are, as a group, among the poorest in the nation is a product of a history of colonial power relations between Euro and Native Americans. That the majority group historically had the power to define a minority group in official discourse (in this case the naming of sports teams) and that those names continue to be perpetuated is a product of that same historical legacy.
4. I realize few, if any, here will agree with me. I am conflicted myself, as I own as much "Redskins" branded merchandise and memorabilia as just about anyone. But even if you don't agree I think it is worth thinking about more deeply then just reflexively saying "I like the Redskins, the name has always existed in my living memory, I am not offended, therefore anyone who thinks a problem exists is a fringe radical". I wanted to think some more about this so I went and picked up the book I referenced above, Team Spirits: The Native American Mascots Controversy. I have only read the introduction and the chapter on the Redskins (which is not particularly scholarly since it was not written by a scholar), but it appears quite interesting and scholarly from the introduction. It is an edited volume so it contains a number of articles.