Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder penned a letter to the team’s fan base this week. And the end results were as expected. He came across as a ignorant stooge attempting to dumb down what is a complex issue that is rooted within the core of out national heritage and is a part of our own dark history.
That is the treatment of the Native American population and the genocide of a people earlier in our history of a nation. By now you know very well the complexities of the situation and the overriding opinions of many around the country. Whether the Redskins name can be viewed as racist isn’t really at point here. It speaks to a time in which an indigenous people were forced from their lands, butchered in mass, exiled to foreign compounds and even forced to conform to white man’s society.
We’ve read all about this in school. Some of us have studied it after college. Others might be considered bigger experts than you or I, but it’s hard to find someone as ignorant as Mr. Daniel Snyder on this topic.
Several months ago I wrote you about my personal reflections on our team name and on our shared Washington Redskins heritage. I wrote then- and believe even more firmly now- that our team name captures the best of who we are and who we can be, by staying true to our history and honoring the deep and enduring values our name represents.
Via CSMonitor.com
Who are “we” in this scenario? The Washington Redskins organization and their fan base? “Honoring the deep and enduring values our name represents.” What values, exactly?
If Snyder is talking about the broader American society of the past, maybe he grew up in a public school system that pulled the wool over children’s eyes by ignoring the real history of Native-Caucasian relations in North America.
The letter continued…
There are Native Americans everywhere that 100% support the name,” Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians Chairwoman Mar L. Resvaloso told me when I came to visit her tribe, “I believe God has turned this around for something good.”
She told me that it was far more important for us to focus on the challenges of education in Native American communities. I listened closely, and pledged to her that I would find ways to improve the daily lives of people in her tribe.
Suddenly it all makes sense. A reservation with a population of just over 4,000 speaks for the countless reservations that is spread across this nation from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
In an interesting turn of events, Snyder talking about helping improve the daily lives of “people in her tribe” sounded a lot like the Bureau of Indian Affairs when it was constructed back in the 19th century, but I digress.
Snyder continued…
Over the past four months, my staff and I traveled to 26 Tribal reservations across twenty states to listen and learn first-hand about the views, attitudes, and experiences of the Tribe. We were invited to their homes, their Tribal Councils and their communities to learn more about the extraordinary daily challenges in their lives.
Via NCIA.org
The stories he heard from those in the 26 tribes (of the near 600 in the United States) were to be expected. Naturally, Snyder and the Redskins wouldn’t put themselves in a situation to speak with those who opposed the name of their franchise. Why would they? How would that serve them best? Why not just confirm their agenda bey meeting with like-minded individuals?
While I question politicians getting involved in something like this and would rather see the situation resolved outside of the crap shoot that is the bogged-down political landscape of the national government, the following statement from Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum rings true, via Think Progress).
For almost eighty years the National Football League and its Washington franchise have exploited a racist Indian caricature, turning it into a billion dollar brand while completely ignoring the needs of real Native American children, families, and elders.
Now, team owner Dan Snyder wants to keep profiting from his team’s racist brand and use those profits to attempt to buy the silence of Native Americans with a foundation that is equal parts public relations scheme and tax deduction.
McCollum is speaking to the Original American’s Foundation that Snyder announced. In his open letter to the fan base, the Redskins owner promised to help with poverty, diabetes and infrastructure, among other pressing issues, on some of the most run-down reservations in North America.
One problem.
Where was this help prior to the whole name controversy? Is Snyder using his money to 1) buy the hearts and minds of the native population and 2) influence internal politics within the reservations themselves?
Excuse me for being a skeptic here. That’s what happens when you’ve learned, studied, lived with and known about a native population that has been destroyed, marginalized and ignored by the broader Caucasian power elite in this nation for centuries now.
In one fell swoop, Snyder attempted to change the narrative from the outright racist origins of his team name to him being some sort of saint coming to rescue of what has been a independent subsection of North American society for decades now.
Maybe Snyder will prove me wrong here, but he doesn’t seem to be much more than a politically-driven hack with an agenda that derives more from his own public image and financial bottom line than the health and well being of the native population.
That’s my unfiltered take.
Photo: Dale Zanine, USA Today