Secretary Ryan Zinke backs Washington NFL team's return to D.C.

Monday, December 10, 2018

Will the Washington NFL team and its racist mascot be returning to the nation's capital with the help of the Trump administration and Congress?

According to The Washington Post, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke is supporting the team's efforts to build a new stadium in Washington, D.C. Language could be inserted into a massive spending bill this month to pave the way for a new development, the paper said.

The Department of the Interior declined to comment on the proposal, which surfaced on Capitol Hill as the 115th Congress comes to an end. But one lawmaker acknowledged that talks are underway regarding the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium less than 2 miles from the U.S. Capitol.

“I am continuing to work on multiple legislative options for the redevelopment of the RFK site," Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is a non-voting member of Congress, said in a statement to The Post.

“The Washington team name is an indisputable racial slur … We must demand that our people be treated with dignity and civility.” – Ray Halbritter of @oneidanation on why Native people deserve respect and not harmful mascots. #ChangeTheMascot #NCAI75 pic.twitter.com/JN0qON3IfP
— NCAI (@NCAI1944) October 24, 2018

The team used to play at the RFK site, which is owned by the federal government. During the Obama administration, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell indicated that she would not entertain talks about development there unless the racist mascot was addressed.

Officials in D.C., including Norton, Mayor Muriel Bowser and city council members, also have spoken out against the racist imagery. But some appear to be willing to overlook the issue while they negotiate for the team's return.

Every major Indian organization, as well as dozens of tribes, oppose the continued use of the name and its associated symbols, calling them stereotypical and offensive.

The R-word "is a painful reminder of the hate, prejudice and injustice heaped upon us since that first boat touched our shores," newspaper publisher and Lakota journalist Tim Giago wrote on Indianz.Com last week.

The federal government is currently being funded through a continuing resolution that expires on December 21. The NFL stadium deal would presumably be inserted in a long-term appropriations measure that is being drafted in anticipation of passage before the end of the year.

According to The Post, the owner of the team, officials in D.C., Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration are working on possible language for the bill. The provision would likely go unnoticed because of the large and complex nature of such legislation -- spending bills tend to run for thousands and thousands of pages.