Column: Once again time to tell the Redskins to drop 'racist' name

Thursday, January 6, 2011  

"After a recent visit to the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall, I'm wondering how much longer our city will tolerate having a football team known as "Redskins."

It's a racist name, patently offensive - and the incongruence is simply ridiculous: a world-class institution devoted to showcasing Native American heritage in a city whose leading sports franchise makes a mockery of that heritage.

A film now showing at the museum, called "Reel Injun," chronicles more than a hundred years of insidious depictions of Native Americans in movies. We have been woefully misinformed, and our kids are still being brainwashed.

Walt Disney mythmakers would have them believe that Pocahontas was some Westernized siren in a sultry dress and not the 9-year-old girl that she really was when John Smith took an interest in her.

Bugs Bunny and Popeye are still killing off the "sneaky savages."

John Wayne can still be heard yelling: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

In our minds, Geronimo was Chuck Conners spray painted red - which, as a Native American comedian noted in the film, made about as much sense as "Adam Sandler portraying Malcolm X."

Enough already."

Get the Story:
Courtland Milloy: It's time once again to tell Washington's football team to ditch the 'Redskins' racist moniker (The Washington Post 1/5)