What's in a Team's Name? How About a Slur?
Sterling, I reasoned, was getting punished for insults that he uttered in private -- before they were leaked. Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, by contrast, was insulting Native American Indians in public every day that he refused to change his team's name.
But Snyder has rebuffed all critics with the resounding declaration that he would "NEVER," all caps, change the team's name.
Yet long-time District of Columbia sports fans were accustomed to such public-relations-sensitive name changes. Back when the Washington Bullets became an embarrassingly ironic name for the city's pro basketball team in the 1990s as the city suffered through an epidemic of gun violence-related homicides, owner Abe Pollin in 1997 changed the team's name to its present-day Wizards.
Despite some wisecracks about whether Wizards sounded like a Ku Klux Klan meeting, the new name stuck.
Weeks later I discovered that I had become an Internet meme when The People Who Have Nothing Better To Do With Their Time Than Copy-And-Paste Email Jokes, made a "Response to Clarence Page" essay go viral.
"Let's ditch the Kansas City Chiefs, the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians," the essay argues. "If your shorts are in a wad because of the reference the name Redskins makes to skin color, then we need to get rid of the Cleveland Browns."
Cute. But let's face it: Such a lunge for levity distracts from the biggest glaring offense in the Redskins' name. Unlike the Chiefs, Braves, Indians, etc., "Redskins" is a racial slur.
As Oneida Nation Representative Ray Halbritter and National Congress of American Indians Executive Director Jacqueline Pata, two early leaders of the name-change movement, responded to the poll, the results are actually "encouraging."
"Native Americans are resilient," Halbritter and Para wrote in a joint statement. "However, that proud resilience does not give the NFL a license to continue marketing, promoting and profiting off of a dictionary-defined racial slur -- one that tells people outside of our community to view us as mascots."
But since this is the age of Donald Trump, thick skins and anti-political correctness, I don't expect the Redskins' name to go soon, although I have considered possible compromises.
Sportscaster Tony Kornheiser, for example, once suggested keeping the name but replacing the team's symbol with a steaming bowl of roasted red potatoes. Sounds delicious.
But, as an African-American, I would like to offer keeping the ethnic flavor but with a different color: The Washington Blackskins.
After all, if an ethnic slur really makes a cool team name, as Snyder insists, I'd love to hear what his black players, in particular, think of the honor.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
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