Hail to the Redskins! Hail Victory! Braves on the warpath! Fight for old D.C.! Yeah, I know. Pure unadulterated racism. We just didn’t know it. Fortunately, we now have sensitive souls like Ray Halbritter of the Oneida Indian Nation to tutor us in our depravity. “By changing his team’s name,” Redskin owner Dan Snyder “can create a better historical legacy for himself — one of tolerance and mutual respect,” says Halbritter: “Native Americans do not want their people to be hurt by such painful epithets.” Hurt? Native Americans are “hurt” by the Redskins’ name? Years ago, I recall hearing a line I thought a magnificent tribute to the toughness, bravery and perseverance of these peoples that the Europeans encountered and fought on American soil for centuries. “There is no whine in the Indian,” the writer said. What he meant was that these were people who stood, fought and died, and did not whimper. And it is that character trait so many teams from the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota to the Cleveland Indians of the Cuyahoga seek to capture in their adopted names. And as I have never heard of anyone choosing a team name to insult it, who is really lacking in tolerance and mutual respect here? If Halbritter has a problem with the Redskins, he’s got more problems than that in D.C. Among this city’s great monuments is the memorial to Jefferson whose Declaration of Independence speaks of those “merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction, of all ages, sexes and conditions.” After burning and pillaging Atlanta and Columbia, S.C., Gen. William Tecumseh “Uncle Billy” Sherman talked of a “final solution to the Indian problem” and wrote his friend Gen. Grant: “We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.” Theodore Roosevelt dissented from Gen. Sherman’s oft-stated view that the “only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Said. T. R., “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.” And Teddy was a RINO. And so what are we going to do here? Edit Jefferson’s declaration, tear down the Jefferson Memorial, pull down Sherman’s statue, dynamite T.R. off the face of Mount Rushmore? Or maybe just tell the Oneida crowd we know how excruciatingly painful it must be to have to hear “Hail to the Redskins!” but are confident they have the moxie and the manhood to deal with it. Meanwhile, let’s get back to the game. IMAGE NOTES: The image above is an artistic remix by Linda Muller for buchanan.org. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) SOURCE: Flickr ]]>