{"id":47000,"date":"2020-07-03T10:08:20","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T14:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=47000"},"modified":"2020-08-14T10:08:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T14:08:31","slug":"does-anyone-else-feel-the-washington-redskins-are-deflecting-from-bigger-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=47000","title":{"rendered":"Does anyone else feel the Washington Redskins are deflecting from bigger issues?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The skinny<\/a>: amidst pressure from large corporate sponsors who have likely been pressured themselves by myriads of influences, the Washington Redskins have acquiesced to \u201cthoroughly reviewing\u201d the name of the franchise AKA changing the name may actually be happening after multiple decades<\/span><\/p>\n

Pretty much my entire life after realizing that I was someone who enjoyed sports, the Washington Redskins have been under fire for their name.\u00a0 In all fairness, \u201cRedskins\u201d is probably the most offensive of names out in professional sports that borrow from Native American culture, because it\u2019s basically the equivalent of if there were a team named after Africans called \u201cBlackskins.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But for all intents and purposes, the Redskins were the closest thing in my life I\u2019d ever have to a home team, and when I was really started to develop interests in sports, the Washington Redskins were a powerhouse and were on the cusp of winning the 1992 Super Bowl.\u00a0 Fewer things make it easy to become a fan than immediate success, and seeing the Redskins topple the Buffalo Bills for a championship made it really easy to become a Redskins fan.<\/span><\/p>\n

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And through and through, I\u2019d supported them throughout the passage of time, even through shit like Gus Frerotte injuring himself headbutting a wall, Adam Archuleta, being the team that broke the Detroit Lions\u2019 winless streak, and other maladies, because I\u2019d always wanted to see them return to the type of glory that I enjoyed as a kid back in the early 90s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Typically, whenever the topic of protest towards the Redskins name bubbled up every few years more fervent than the last time, I would dismiss it, mostly coming from a place that\u2019s just my inherent personality that\u2019s resistant to change, no matter how inconsequential it may or may not be to the grander spectrum of my personal life.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s just that the Redskins were a good childhood memory for me as a kid, and I frankly didn\u2019t really care to see the team bother changing their name, completely ignoring the feelings of the culture(s) that the name\u2019s very existence bothers.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it looks like in light of current events, AKA the dumpster fire that\u2019s known as 2020 America, the whole debate appears to finally be catching some traction, leading to the Redskins franchise announcing that they\u2019re going to \u201cthoroughly review\u201d the name of the franchise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Make no mistake, Redskins owner Dan Snyder isn\u2019t doing this because of the societal pressures of racism, he\u2019s doing this because some of his team\u2019s chief corporate sponsors (FedEx, Nike, Pepsi) are caving to societal pressures to disassociate themselves from the Redskins, and the threat to his wallet and investors is making this all happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless, it looks like the Redskins name has finally gotten off the highway, and is on the home stretch to the retirement home.\u00a0 Although, there\u2019s always the possibility that Dan Snyder will go super heel, double down and say some shit like \u201cokay, we\u2019ve thoroughly reviewed the name and it turns out that everything is all good\u201d and keep the name, or The Onion had the best take<\/a> with how the name will still change, but only in a technical manner, but there\u2019s still no guarantee that the Redskins are going anywhere just yet.<\/span><\/p>\n

But given the pressures from big business, I think it\u2019s almost a safe bet that it\u2019s going to change.\u00a0 So much, to the point where CNN and other outlets have already collated potential replacement names<\/a>, and there\u2019s literally odds out on them already.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I really like that among them, are the Washington Generals, and the Washington Capitols; nothing would be more apropos for the woeful Redskins to just become the Generals, and go from metaphorical losers to the literal losers that lost to the Harlem Globetrotters a million times.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s the Capitols with an O, as if that would be more than enough to differentiate themselves from the Washington Capitals with an A hockey squad, that actually won a championship in the last lifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, one thought that\u2019s been swirling in my head now is that the timing of all of this seems like it\u2019s convenient, whether deliberate or not, at drawing attention away from the, in my opinion, more important matters of police brutality, the status of their general funding, and the plight of black equality in America.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t to say that the feelings of Native Americans comes secondary at all, but I get this niggling feeling that the timing of this is almost tactical, like a strawman side quest of an issue, that\u2019s drawing attention away from the heavily and publicly politicized matters of black lives matter and police brutality.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, renaming sports teams is important to Native Americans and their supporters, but the last time I checked, the existence of the Redskins, Cleveland Indians and all other Native American names like the Braves, Illini and Seminoles wasn\u2019t resulting in people getting killed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, I\u2019m not too thrilled about the Redskins changing their name, because the Redskins were my gateway into football fandom, but the world will still move on, no matter what their name ends up being.\u00a0 I lived through it once when the Washington Bullets changed their name, citing the violent connotation of bullets, and the Wizards are here now as a result.\u00a0 Whatever the Redskins will change their name to will be what they change their name to, but I honestly think that at the current juncture of American culture, there are<\/em> more pressing matters that should be getting the national attention and scrutiny over the names of sports teams.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The skinny: amidst pressure from large corporate sponsors who have likely been pressured themselves by myriads of influences, the Washington Redskins have acquiesced to \u201cthoroughly reviewing\u201d the name of the franchise AKA changing the name may actually be happening after multiple decades Pretty much my entire life after realizing that I was someone who enjoyed … Continue reading Does anyone else feel the Washington Redskins are deflecting from bigger issues?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[131,79,106,89,58,190],"class_list":["post-47000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-branding","tag-cashmoney","tag-football","tag-racism","tag-sports","tag-white-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47002,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47000\/revisions\/47002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}