The Washington football team’s racial slur of an official name has a new vocal defender today in the editorial board of The New York Post. Reacting to a federal trademark hearing last week in which a group of Native American activists made their case to have the team stripped of its exclusive rights over the name because it is derogatory to a group of people, the Post argues that the name, in fact, should be celebrated.
In making its case for the Washington NFL franchise’s name, the Post editorial defers to the same talking points used by team executives:
For their part, the [Washington football team] insist that team names are meant to celebrate, not humiliate. They are invoked to connote strength, victory and pride. Which is why we have the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.
That’s a similar line to what General Manager Bruce Allen has been saying lately. At the hearing last Thursday before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, Allen told adjudicators that not only should people be cool with the name, it’s even more acceptable because Washington just enjoyed a winning record.
The Post also cites the same 2004 University of Pennsylvania Annenberg poll the team always cites in its straw-man defense of the name. In that survey, only nine percent of 768 respondents who identified themselves as Native American said they find the Washington football team’s name offensive. But even the poll’s director finds that argument risible.
In The Washington Post today, sports columnist Mike Wise talked to Adam Clymer, the former New York Times reporter who ran the Annenberg survey. Even though a wide majority of those questioned said they were fine with the name, Clymer told Wise that it can’t be ignored that some are deeply offended:
“Look, let’s suppose my numbers were 100 percent right, that 90 percent of American Indians were okay with it and that the people on the other end of the phone were actually what they said they were,” he said. “Given that, what if you had a dinner party and you invited 10 people. And by the end of the night it’s pretty clear that nine of them have had a tremendous time and really enjoyed the food and company. But one of them you managed to completely insult and demean, to the point where people around them noticed and it was uncomfortable. So, ask yourself: Were you a social success that night?”
The answer, obviously, is no. Citing one poll over and over again is a weak argument to begin with, to say nothing of the fact that such a defense openly kicks aside the people who are legitimately hurt by it. But the Washington football team keeps trotting out that flimsy excuse, and now, apparently, so will The New York Post.
