Anti-’Redskins’ movement grows as Black Press editor drops name
28th October 2013 0 Comments
By Hazel Trice Edney Contributing Writer
(TriceEdneyWire.com) The editor-publisher of the award-winning Richmond Free Press has announced his paper will no longer use the name Redskins to describe Washington, D.C.s professional football team because he says the name is racist, harkening to the historic torture and abuse of Native Americans.
We want to make absolutely certain that the Free Press does not endorse or promote a totally unacceptable name. Also, it represents an opportunity to show that Washington, D.C. the capital of the United States is not riveted to the past and that Virginia is not riveted to the past. Its an opportunity to move ahead and not to continue to encourage this take our nation back theme that the ultra conservatives have, says Raymond H. Boone Sr. in an interview this week. We should never become acclimated to the outrageous. And the Free Press is leading the expunging of this name so that it will not be a cause for people to find an unacceptable, racist unpatriotic name acceptable.
Boone, who has a decades-long reputation as a force against racism in Virginia, announced his decision to drop the name in an editorial published in the October 17-23 edition of the Free Press. He says the paper will only refer to the team as the Washington professional football team.
He wrote, The Richmond Free Press is expunging the nickname of the Washington professional football team from its news and editorial columns. The reason: The nickname is insulting to Native Americans, racist and divisive. Plus, it promotes the spreading ugly Tea Party mentality that is growing in Virginia and the Nations Capital.
The editorial continues, Our use of the depraved nickname would only serve to cause people to become more acclimated to the outrageous. It would give a cause for the regeneration of the despicable N-word and other derogatory names given to other racial groups.
Daniel Snyder, the owner of the team, has vowed not to change the name, claiming that 90 percent of Native Americans, including many Native American students, do not want to change the name and view it as a source of pride. However, the stance by the 21-year-old newspaper joins a rising chorus of voices against the name, from people and organizations that associate it with race hatred, bigotry and the ethnic cleansing mentality perpetuated by President Andrew Jackson and his Indian Removal Act of May 28, 1830 among others.
Jacqueline Pata, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, a 69-year-old organization that promotes itself as the oldest, largest and most representative organization of American Indians and Alaska natives, also refrains from using the term, Redskins.
Speaking on an August 26 panel, No Lie Can Live Forever, sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, Pata said her community calls the team, The Local Team.
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Anti-’Redskins’ movement grows as Black Press editor drops name