50 senators to NFL: Change Redskins' racist name

[KamaAina]

http://news.yahoo.com/50-senators-nfl-change-redskins-racist-name-165404240--politics.html

Half the U.S. Senate urged NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Thursday to change the Washington Redskins' name, saying it is a racist slur and the time is ripe to replace it.

In one letter, 49 senators cited the NBA's quick action recently to ban Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life after he was heard on an audio recording making offensive comments about blacks. They said Goodell should formally push to rename the Redskins....

Reid and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., led the letter-writing effort. All senators on the letter are Democrats. Cantwell spokesman Jared Leopold said Republicans were not asked to participate....

Democrats not signing the letter were Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of nearby Virginia, where the team's headquarters are; Mark Pryor of Arkansas, in a tight re-election race this year; and Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, two of their party's more moderate lawmakers.

"More moderate"?

[highmindedhavi]

1. Chicago Blackhawks next?

nt

[KamaAina]

2. The Blacksouls are only named after the Indian tribe indirectly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Blackhawks#Founding

On May 1, 1926, the NHL awarded an expansion franchise for Chicago to a syndicate headed by former football star Huntington Hardwick of Boston. At the same meeting, Hardwick arranged the purchase of the players of the Portland Rosebuds of the Western Hockey League for $100,000 from WHL president Frank Patrick in a deal brokered by Boston Bruins' owner Charles Adams. However, only one month later Huntwick's group sold out to Chicago coffee tycoon Frederic McLaughlin.

McLaughlin had been a commander with the 333rd Machine Gun Battalion of the 86th Infantry Division during World War I. This Division was nicknamed the "Blackhawk Division", after a Native American of the Sauk nation, Black Hawk, who was a prominent figure in the history of Illinois. McLaughlin named the new hockey team in honor of the military unit, making it one of many sports team names using Native Americans as icons. However, unlike the military division, the team's name was spelled in two words as the "Black Hawks" until 1986, when the club officially became the "Blackhawks", based on the spelling found in the original franchise documents.

And the next thing to go should be:

[KamaAina]

3. Alternate suggestions are, of course, welcome

Mine: the "Washington Also-Rans".

[El Supremo]

4. The Washington Originals

After the original Americans

[KamaAina]

6. Gregg Easterbrook used to call them the "Chesapeake Bay Indigenous Persons"

when he wrote "tuesday Morning Quarterback" for Slate years ago.

[El Supremo]

5. It just doesn't have the support of sports fans.

Look at this ESPN poll:
http://espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?sportIndex=sportsnation&pollId=4334089

Does that mean that sports fans are racist? Or do they just want to stay with tradition?

[KamaAina]

7. I'm going with tradition.

I can't see that sports fans would be any more racist than anyone else. Perhaps even less so, given the prevalence of athletes of color in most major sports, the NHL excepted.

[Iggo]

8. Yes.