The sports culture in the United States is remarkably significant in everyday life to American citizens. The intensity of its prevalence in everyday life is varied from basic knowledge of team status all the way to obsessive statistics memorization. I am one of the many Americans that are avid fans of multiple teams in various sports, but my true passion to follow is professional football. Last year an on-going battle to change the name of one NFL team came into light and it sparked a large debate on whether the Washington Redskins’ logo and name should be replaced due to its defaming nature. Multiple opinions and sides of the story were brought into question but I think this clip from the Daily Show with John Stewart concisely (although questionably satirical) outlines the issue. While the show does flaunt its satire I would like to focus primarily on the misrepresentation of the Redskin name and what it actually means to Native Americans today.
When it comes to name representation the producers included interviews with three main parties: 1) Washington fans, 2) Native American activists, and 3) Washington Redskins’ Owner Daniel Snyder. By implementing the name Redskin, the organization embraces a literally defined racial slur that impairs the identity of the Native American population. Daniel Snyder stresses in the interview that the name represents an honorable, proud, courageous, and brave idea that the team strives to embody but why does the Native American heritage embody these noble traits? Snyder uses this played out defense without realizing that he buys into another culturally insensitive mindset that is no better than a negative view when he assumes that all Native Americans were a noble people. However, just assuming that his umbrella generalization was correct what does the name really honor? The activists correctly state that the term redskin was used when referring to a Native American trophy scalp. So by saying that this name honors Native Americans when it really conjures past injustices is wrong. One of the activists brings up a critical point when she states that being a Native American walking down the street of Washington D.C. is heartbreaking because being offended by the constant reminder that her ancestors were decimated and then told to get over it is extremely hard to handle.
The reason why I wanted to focus on this misrepresentation of Native Americans in popular media is because of the staunch stance the organization makes against changing the name. Money is a strong determining factor when making a name change but it’s been done multiple times and often for reasons much less critical than this. The owner and the fans believe in preserving their sports culture and handing it down to future Washington enthusiasts. What does this tell us when an organization is more concerned with a game and its minuscule history of 80 years than an entire pan-Native American movement to end a misrepresented logo? I am glad that this movement received a considerable amount of recognition in the past year and I hope that the Washington organization will look past its memorabilia sales so as to be culturally sensitive to the current concern.
Native Peoples of E-Portfolio 
To me, this is the quintessential example of main stream American culture justifying their actions using a defense that the stereotypes are positive. It is evident to me that our (white) culture seems incapable of understanding how using a stereotype might be wrong, even if we view the characteristics as positive. The arguement is that dressing like a “thug” is okay in the context of a hip-hop party, talking about how all Asians are good at Math is okay because we admire it, and using the word “Redskin” as a mascot is okay because we are honoring Native American’s noble heritage. I agree with you that it is wrong. My question, for which I have no answer, is this: how do we demonstrate to people that stereotypes can be harmful even when we think we are imitating a positive characteristic? I know when I was growing up I heard the saying “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. As I have grown, I have found that imitation can be deeply offensive, because we are holding back an oversimplified image of how we view a person, without seeing everything about a person or culture.
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