Photo by Fred King
Even as the clamoring intensifies for the Washington football team to rethink its name, a vast majority of its fans and adults in the D.C. area still believe that the organization should not change its name. A poll released today by The Washington Post shows that 61 percent of D.C. area residents like the team’s name, while 79 percent of people who identified themselves as fans say the name should not be changed.
But while the Washington football team’s name is viewed by many as a racial slur derogatory toward Native Americans, the Post’s poll finds that it has sticking power. Eighty-two percent of self-identified fans say they either “like” or “love” the name. An Associated Press poll released May 2 found that 79 percent of Americans favor keeping the name intact.
Still, even among the cohorts that would oppose the team changing its name is some acknowledgment that the word “Redskins” is an inappropriate word to use in describing someone of Native American ancestry. Fifty-six percent of those polled and 53 percent of self-identified fans say the the word is inappropriate in that context.
But a startlingly high number in both groups say it is not inappropriate. Twenty-eight percent of all polled say “Redskin” is an acceptable way to describe a Native American person, while 38 percent of the team’s fans say that.
In the past six months, the local NFL franchise has come under scrutiny from a Smithsonian Institution symposium on racial imagery in professional sports, a hearing before the federal government’s trademark board, a bill in Congress that would strip the team of its trademark, and a D.C. Council resolution suggesting the team change its name to “Redtails.” Additionally, multiple publications in D.C., including DCist and Washington City Paper, refuse to print the team’s name. And a high school in Cooperstown, N.Y. that used the team’s name for its athletic programs recently dropped it in favor of “Hawkeyes,” even getting a $10,000 grant from the Oneida Nation to help pay for the transition.
In the face of past criticism, the team has insisted that its name should be viewed as a tribute to Native Americans rather than a brazen insult. Team officials frequently point to its 81-year history as immutable. In an interview last week with The Argus-Leader of Sioux Falls, S.D., the team’s Hall of Fame quarterback, Joe Theismann, said he played for the Washington football team “to honor Native people in that regard.” (The team also has a history of trolling its detractors.)
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has also rallied to the defense of the team’s name. “For the team’s millions of fans and customers, who represent one of America’s most ethnically and geographically diverse fan bases, the name is a unifying force that stands for strength, courage, pride, and respect,” Goodell wrote in a June 5 letter to members of Congress who had asked him to consider a name change. (The same, though, could be said for any of the NFL’s other 31 franchises.)
The Post surveyed 1,106 Washington area adults using both landline and mobile phones between June 19 and 23. The poll carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Still, as much as the poll finds widespread support for keeping the name, it does show a glimmer of modernity, or at least that gridiron success is more imperative than whatever the team is called. If the team were to change its name, 81 percent of fans say it would not make much of a dent in their support for the franchise.
Hail, hail, hail to the whatever.
