The Mascot Wars: opponents of using Indian names for sports teams are on the warpath. Pocahontas descendent Dave Shiflett scalps them

Women's Quarterly, Spring, 2002 by Dave Shiflett

THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS have a new coach--who required a bribe of $25 million to take on that thankless job--but the organization remains mired in an old controversy: the team name. As is well known, Indian activists consider "Redskins" to be demeaning. The question is: Should the Skins shed their traditional moniker for something acceptable to every living being--if, indeed, such a thing is possible?

First off, it should be said that the Indians are not alone in their complaints. Just before Steve Spurrier signed on as the new coach, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments demanded the name be dropped. It is easy to dismiss the Council of Governments, of course. As a Washington Post columnist put it, the council is known as "the meetingest people around"--which is to say the council is composed of chattering busybodies. Indeed, the council reportedly spent three times as long discussing the Redskins issue as it did terrorism preparedness on the day of the vote. Yet the council summed up the complaint pretty well. Carol Schwartz, the Republican chairman of the Metropolitan Council and author of the anti-Redskins resolution, says, "This degrading, dehumanizing, and racially derogatory name has gone on for too long--far too long." Takoma Park (suburban Maryland) council member Bruce Williams added, "When we have knowledge that something we are saying is hurtful to other people, it becomes malice."

As a certified relative of Pocahontas, the famed Indian princess, I am not without a cock in this fight. In addition, fairness demands that when a person says he or she has been racially offended, one can at least consider the possibility that this is true. In addition to that, it's safe to say that most people would agree that the Redskins' chief problem is not their name but their miserable on-field performance, and so we really don't care what the team is called.

What might tip many people against changing the name, however, is the nature of the opposition. Critics seem to be under the impression that their outrage should trump any reasonable discussion. What's more, their false accusations of malice are hardly appreciated. Besides that, the complaint itself is based on the insistence that any use of Indian symbolism is degrading, when in fact the intention is quite the opposite. Mascots--human, animal, and mineral--trade not on negative stereotypes, but on positive stereotype and myth.

In the Mascot Wars, as in many other cultural disputes, hysteria is the weapon of choice. Mrs. Schwartz, striking a typical posture of moral superiority, makes it clear that those who do not agree with her position are by definition happy to degrade, dehumanize, and endorse a racial epithet. This comes very close to calling opponents "haters." Mr. Williams, meantime, not only wrongly brands his opposition as malicious but has succumbed to the notion that if someone's feelings are hurt, that which has hurt them must be banned. This is the kind of reasoning that led to Santa Claus being exiled from another Maryland community event during the Christmas season.

Of course, it is worth asking if "Redskins" is truly a racial epithet. At first glance, one can sympathize with the complaint, even as one admits that the likelihood of management purposefully insulting people is obviously slim to nonexistent. As the Redskins' front office is quick to point out, the name is a reference to the old Plains Indian habit of painting the body in red clay as a prelude to battle. This squares with the team song, which goes on about scalping the enemy and other warrior skills, befitting for a game of violence, which football clearly is (I speak as a fan).

Clearly, at least to those who desire to see the thing clearly, the name is meant as a hat-tip to courage, bravery skill, and power, as is the case with other teams with Indian names (Braves, Indians, Warriors, Chiefs, etc.). Similarly, other team names are chosen because they embody such characteristics: Lions, Rams, Eagles, and Bears--as opposed to Starlings, Goats, Skunks, and Snakes. None of this washes with the activists. Prom their perspective, any use of any Indian symbolism is off-limits. And so they target Red Man Chewing Tobacco, Crazy Horse Malt Liquor, and even Land O' Lakes butter, which sports a beautiful Indian chick on the box. As one activist explains, "It's demeaning to Indian women. It's everyone's image of the compliant, helpful Indian maiden whose main job is to save the life of the good-hearted white guy or to lead them across vast tracts of land to other people's territory And to service them in between times." One has to wonder how many consumers, white guys especially, have looked at the maiden on the box and thought: You little slut. Not many, one can safely assume.

The activist's complaint is mere hysteria, and this brings us to the public policy question: Is pandering to hysterics good public policy? Why should anyone get away with demonizing their opponents to the point of denouncing them for sins they have not committed? They shouldn't, of course.