Debating a nickname change for the Washington Redskins became downright American on Thursday. Enacting change, however, still remains a foreign concept.
The New York Times reported that 50 U.S. senators upped the pressure on the NFL to mandate that the professional Washington franchise owner Daniel Snyder change the team name in keeping with the current climate fueled by the NBA's sanctions against Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for his racial comments.
"The NFL can no longer ignore this and perpetuate the use of this name as anything but what it is: a racial slur," said the letter, which was circulated by Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, and endorsed by Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader, the Times reported. "We urge the NFL to formally support a name change for the Washington football team."
Cantwell said that "we are going to find out if the NFL can act against this kind of discrimination as quickly as the NBA did," adding that she thought the letter marked a legislative milestone.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says not enough people want Redskins name change to consider it
"Listen, it is hard to get 50 people in this place to agree on anything," she said. Cantwell is chairwoman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and she said her committee would look overturning the NFL's tax-exempt status as a way of pressuring the league to force a name change.
The Sporting News also ran an opinion piece that took up the cause originated by Kevin Gover, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Indian, suggesting that Washington change its nickname to the "Americans."
"The point is that it's about context," Gover said to USA TODAY Sports in October. "If you called them the Americans and had a contemporary Native image, that's inclusive. That's much different from singling us out and calling us by that name and having the image of a stereotypical Native American from the 19th Century, as though we're not still around."
Sporting News suggested that only the actual words would need to be changed, not the logo or color scheme. The nickname fits with the Washington Nationals baseball team and the Washington Capital teams. It added that the Dallas-Washington rivalry - instead of Cowboys vs. Indians - could become America's Team vs. Americans.
Americans vs. Eagles also works well, Sporting News added.
Then it ran a poll asking whether the Redskins should change their name. By a 2-to-1 margin, the pollsters said no.
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