Raven Ziegler from Minneapolis protests the name of the Washington team. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
Seems like not a week goes by without more organizations pressuring the Washington football team to change their name. This time, it’s Congress.
In a letter from two members of Congress—Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma)—that’s expected to be sent today to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, they urge him to support changing the team’s name, saying that they might reconsider the league’s tax-exempt status if they don’t, the New York Times reports.
“For you to pretend to that the name is defensible on decade-old public opinion polling flies in the face of our constitutionally protected government-to-government relationship with tribes,” writes Cantwell and Cole. Currently, Cantwell sits as chairwoman of the Indian Affairs Committee while Cole is a member of the Native American Caucus. The letter specifically cites a pre-Super Bowl press conference where Goodell defended the team’s name as honoring Native Americans.
The letter also cites the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s recent determination that the name is a derogatory slur in a rejection of a pork rind trademark application. “The National Football League is on the wrong side of history,” the letter says. “It is not appropriate for this multibillion-dollar 501(c)(6) tax-exempt organization to perpetuate and profit from the continued degradation of tribes and Indian people.”
Although no one from the NFL has responded to the letter yet, Tony Wyllie, a spokesman for the Washington football team, did in an email to the New York Times. He makes this point: doesn’t Congress have bigger things to worry about? “With all the important issues Congress has to deal with, such as a war in Afghanistan to deficits to health care, don’t they have more important issues to worry about than a football team’s name?” Wyllie says. “And given the fact that the name of Oklahoma means ‘red people’ in Choctaw, this request is a little ironic.”
You can read the full letter below.
