Olympian Billy Mills. Photo by Karin Eagle / Native Sun News
Olympic legend Billy Mills, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, responds to a new poll that said "ordinary" Native Americans are not bothered by the Washington NFL team's racist mascot:
When considering the serious and contentious issue of the Washington football team’s name, it is important not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Stereotyping is one such mistake. Flawed polling methodology is another. For more than a decade, team owner Dan Snyder has used an Annenberg Public Policy Center poll that showed massive Native American support for the name as a bludgeon in the debate. But that poll had serious methodological issues: It sampled self-identified Native American respondents. It is absurd to claim that this kind of sample could possibly represent the diverse opinions of the members of 567 Native American nations. That’s why it is incomprehensible that The Post repeated this methodological error. There is no justification for it, and it makes the results meaningless and the methodology racist.Get the Story:
Billy Mills: A poll doesn’t give a team the right to use an offensive name (The Washington Post 5/23)
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