Jon Oliver had a great bit on why the Washington football team should change its racist name. The clip is well worth watching and includes a powerful commercial that was made to illustrate why the name is so offensive. Oliver also made his own commercial for the cause.
And while I am at it, I hope the Cleveland baseball team changes its racist logo too and until they do I hope they never win a division title, let along a championship. In fact, I am hoping they finish last in their division.
The owner of the Deadskins, Danny Snyder, is a first class asshole. When he first bought the team, he held a meeting of everybody in the front office and informed them that he didn’t get to be worth 2 billion dollars by being a nice guy. The next day,he fired everybody in the front office. A real sweetheart.
A lot of the fans of that team are also grade-A assholes. My boss has season tickets and he brags about how he’s “not PC” and makes a big deal over calling the team by its demeaning name.
New name suggestions:
-- the revolving doors
-- the imperialists
-- the exploiters
-- the K street pirates
-- lobbyists
-- racist fucks
No, wait, scratch that: The Washington Weathervanes
So how about it if the networks all stop using “Redskins” in their coverage and just start using the term “Washington”?
Problem would be at least partially solved.
Maybe we could take up a collection to send the owner a smallpox tainted blanket?
Nah, they just change it to the Redskin Potatoes. Then everyone is happy 😀
Re Marcus Ranum
I still think that Deadskins is the most accurate description since Danny the schmuck bought the team.
How about the Washington Thinskins? Snyder and his backers can’t handle criticism too well.
They apparently just lost trademark protections…
Sweeeet!!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/redskins/2014/06/18/redskins-trademark-revoked-us-patent-office/10735053/
“In Landmark Decision, U.S. Patent Office Cancels Trademark For Redskins Football Team”
http://thinkprogress.org/default/2014/06/18/3450333/in-landmark-decision-us-patent-office-cancels-trademark-for-redskins-football-team/
Can we start a petition to get the name changed to the Washington Wallonians? 😀
Most journalists have been refering to them as “The Washington team”. I prefer calling them the Washington Torn ACLs.
Here’s another one: Washington Congresses. Marcus Ranum in #3 has some good ones. I like Washington Lobbyists.
One of my Crazy Ideas is, after each time a Washington NFL game is televised, flood the FCC with complaints about the use of a racist slur in the middle of the afternoon on CBS. The NFL is already punchy about the FCC because of Nipplegate, and the networks are perpetually scared of the FCC. Even if the FCC never took it seriously, what if it spooked the networks enough to drop it from their coverage, as you suggest?
I’d hazard to say that the problem would be more than “partially” solved: If 31 NFL teams get to have their name said on network TV, and one conspicuously doesn’t… they won’t keep the racist name for much longer after that.