Opinion | Sports

Mike Wise: No winning in fight to save NFL team's racist mascot

Friday, June 20, 2014

The logo for the Change the Mascot campaign

Columnist Mike Wise urges the NFL and owner Dan Snyder to stop defending the Washington team's racist mascot:

If you’re trying to delay the inevitable, going through arcane legal strategies is a good process — any decent lawyer will tell you that. In this case, however, as this drags on, the opposition will grow more emboldened and supporters more fatigued.
Apropos, no, that this is the inverse of a strategy that worked to perfection for the team’s past three owners? They kept waiting and waiting offended Native Americans out until it receded into the background enough that it became Jack Kent Cooke’s or Snyder’s problem.
There is no value to the NFL in holding out this time. We live in a time of elevated social consciousness, a time when mutual respect is not just a catchphrase like “tipping point.”
There is no turning back. The longer this drags on, the more drained fans are going to be trying to defend an owner’s callousness.
This fight cannot be won by the owner or the fans or the NFL or even Bruce Allen’s childhood memories, however genuine they are. Even if you can win on legal grounds, you are doomed on moral grounds.
If the NFL commissioner or the owner really, truly believed in the power of unity in this team and its historical ability to bring a fractured community together, then the only option they’re left with is changing the name.

Get the Story:
Mike Wise: The question is not whether the football team will change its name, but when and how (The Washington Post 6/20)

More Opinions:
Game over for offensive NFL team names (The Washington Post 6/20)
Rick Morrissey: Time has come for Redskins to ditch their controversial nickname (The Chicago Sun-Times 6/19)
Erik Brady: Redskins' latest loss will only increase pressure (USA Today 6/19)