There's a reason Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has been so bold as to say he will never change the team nickname: He has the backing of the NFL.
Washington Redskins' PR move and assault on Senator Harry Reid's Twitter account backfires
That was reaffirmed Friday. ESPN.com reported that Adolpho Birch, the NFL's senior vice president of labor policy and government affairs, denied Friday that the term "Redskins" is a racial slur on the network's news program, "Outside the Lines."
"The team name is not a slur," Birch said in a phone interview. "The team name is the team name as it has been for 80-plus years. And what we need to do is get beyond sort of understanding this as a point-blank situation and understand it more as a variety of perspectives that all need to be addressed, that all need to be given some weight, so that at the end of it we can come to some understanding that is appropriate and reflects the opinions of all.
Native American Gaming Association pulls out of golf charity event to protest Daniel Snyder's Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation
"I think that is part of the issue with the question is that it is constantly being sort of put into a point-blank, yes-or-no, yes-or-no kind of context when that's not the reality of the situation that we're dealing with."
A day earlier, NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith told ESPN that "Redskins" is a racial slur.
"It's an important issue," Smith said. "The name Redskins is offensive to some and is a slur, I'm not sure that this issue boils down to what any particular player has to say -- what it boils down to is the united nation and others have raised a legitimate conversation to the NFL about the name of the team that is entirely within in their control."
The Redskins have tried a pair of public relations moves to generate support for the controversial nickname without success. They formed the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation in April, designed to "to tackle the troubling realities facing so many tribes across our country."
But the Native American Gaming Association pulled its sponsorship of a charity golf tournament when it found out that the foundation was the tournament's title sponsor.
Earlier this week, the Redskins asked fans via Twitter to send messages to Senator Harry Reid and express their pride over the name. Instead, the vast majority of the tweets told the franchise to change its name.
Do you think "Redskins" is a derogatory term? Comment below or tell us @SportsWN.
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