Today, Explained - The Washington Football Team

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

The District of Columbia's football team is abandoning the name it adopted almost a century ago. Paul Chaat Smith, a curator at the National Museum of the American Indian, hopes the country is at long last ready to reckon with its past. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. It's Today Explains, I'm Sean Ramos-Ferrum and I'm standing outside RFK Memorial Stadium in Northeast Washington, DC. It looks kind of like a dying, rusty, convertible spaceship. Washington's professional football team hasn't played here since about 1996, but on Juneteenth, just about where I'm standing, there's this big

production because a monument was removed. It was a tribute to a guy named George Preston Marshall. Marshall is best known for pioneering the halftime show, the fight song, the forward pass, and for being a raging bigot. He bought the Boston Braves football team in 1932. A year later, he changed the team's name to the Redskins. And in 1937, he moved his team to Washington, D.C. It was the NFL's last team to integrate in 1962, 15 years after other teams had begun drafting black players, and he acquiesced only after the federal government threatened to kick him out of its federal district.

Just before Marshall's statue was removed a few weeks ago, protesters covered it in red paint. On the sides of it, they scrawled a message. Change the name. Bit of a Hail Mary, but it appears to have worked. Some major news out of the NFL. Washington's NFL team retiring its controversial nickname. Here's the statement from the team. Dan Snyder and Coach Rivera are working closely to develop a new name and a design approach

that will enhance the standing of our proud, tradition-rich franchise and inspire our sponsors, fans, and community for the next 100 years. I knew it might be coming, but it's such a shock when it actually happens. Nothing was more immovable in the mascot discussion than the Washington franchise. Paul Chott-Smith is a curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian here in the district, and he's going to help us understand the complexities of the fight to change the name of Washington's professional football team. You know, over the past few decades, there's been a lot of change with universities and public schools that have changed names. So the mascot movement has been amazingly effective. But the professional sports leagues have always been the

hardest, the most immovable. And of those, the ones that had the most investment in keeping the name as it is, was Washington, the football team. Redskins owner Dan Snyder has held firm under some protest that he will not change the nickname of his team. Snyder, who bought the franchise in 1999, claiming it honors Native American heritage, even telling USA Today in 2013, quote, we'll never change the name. It's that simple. Never. You can use caps. And that's when there was a lot of attention paid to it. There were more and more people who were recognizing it,

you know, as something defamatory. Many say this team has been behind the times. They were the last NFL team to integrate. They have held on to this controversial name, widely seen as racist for 87 years. For a while, many sports writers around the country wouldn't use the name. This was like 2014. And then it sort of went away as being a hot button issue.

But then, you know, the end game with this issue was other billionaires and other interests that really pushed it. FedEx sent a private letter to the Washington Redskins saying it will remove all its stadium branding and signage unless the football team changes its name. FedEx signed a 27-year, $205 million naming rights deal with the Redskins back in 1999 to assume the banner of their stadium. Adweek magazine reporting that investment firms and shareholders worth $620 billion have requested that FedEx, as well as Nike and Pepsi, all terminate their ties with the franchise unless owner Daniel Snyder makes the change. None of that would have happened without this activism that went on for years and years beforehand. Let's make our voices loud and heard

and make sure people know exactly who we are. And the Redskins name is not a name of a mascot. It is a racist, derogatory term that I personally take offense to and it's to my children. Tell me a bit about the history of this name. Do you know why it was chosen to begin with? Yeah, you know, we did a lot of research at the museum into this. And, you know, these are names chosen mostly by, you know, really rich white guys. And in the 1930s or 40s, there wasn't a great deal of thought or what might happen or what Native people think.

That changed starting in, you know, as far back as the 50s and 60s, in which people started to voice opposition to this. But it's really only been in the last 20, 30 years that it's begun to register as a significant issue. What did the team say back? The name of our team is the name of our team, and it represents honor, it represents pride, it represents respect. And in no way is this derogatory or racist.

With Washington, the hardest thing is that it actually is a dictionary-defined slur. Did it ever cost the team financially in the past 20 or 30 years of controversy? I think mainly what cost them was just not having won a playoff game since 2005. I mean, that's ultimately the major thing. very few fans choose a team based on the name. You know, fans, you know, you don't say, boy, I would be for the Jaguars, but I just really don't like Jaguars. You know, it's just not how it works. And so this is something DC has. The fans never chose the name.

But then once you love something, if people from the outside attack it, you know, you're defensive. An argument that Dan Snyder has made from time to time is there are Native American fans of the Washington Redskins who approve of the name. Do you think that argument was overstated or over-employed to defend the name? I think there always have been, and there are today, Native people, some of whom who aren't offended, but also some who really support the name? I think there always have been, and there are today, Native people, some of whom who aren't offended, but also some who really support the name. I've met some of them. My question would be how often on any big policy issue do we ask, well, how do the whites feel about it? And do all the whites feel the same way about this issue? And, you know, the reality is like any other community, there are not many things all of us agree on. But this is not like some tiny elite of coastal native people

from universities. This is a widespread view that this is something that's hurtful, that's a relic that needs to change. What did it finally take to change this team's name? Well, I've been thinking about that, and actually it's kind of depressing, because you're going to catalog, first of all, it's these decades and decades of activists who were yelled at at stadiums and attacked and didn't give up. So they deserve most of the credit. But in terms of why it happens now, and what it took, it's very dismaying. It took a national uprising led by African Americans in all 50 states. I think the pandemic played a role in which some things got more attention

because people are at home. And then it took something like $600 billion of corporate and investment money to say, well, time's up. We don't want to support this anymore. And then things changed on a dime. So it took George Floyd's death and protests like this country's never seen for FedEx to feel justified saying, you know, the name's got to go. It feels like this actually didn't have anything to do with respect for Native Americans or their culture. As far as the endgame, yeah. Indians have less political power in the United States and economic power.

So that these huge advertisers that even before this past year certainly would say they're progressive on racial questions can ignore it. They did it once it became untenable, primarily because of, you know, what happened in this country since Memorial Day. And it really, truly had nothing to do with actual Native people. I want to talk to you more about how Native American culture is appropriated in the United States after we take a quick break.

But before we do that, as a Washington sports fan, you got any preferences for a new name for the football team? My two favorites are the Ocelots or the Replacements. The Replacements. There's a Keanu Reeves football movie with the same name, right? Keanu could be the mascot. Everybody likes him. Excellent! designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month.

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Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Paul, this isn't just Washington's football team or the Cleveland and Atlanta baseball teams. You curated this great exhibit at the Museum of the American Indian called Americans that shows people all the different and complicated ways this country glorifies and co-ops images of Native Americans. And I'll just let people know that

they can find a version of it online at americanindian.si.edu slash Americans. dot edu slash americans it's a very weird subversive phenomenon that most folks don't really think about but indian imagery has been in the united states popular culture since before the country started for a really really long time so my view is it actually is something profound. It's something where Americans actually want to remember and acknowledge the fact that the whole country exists because of dispossession of Native people and to try to come to terms with it. There's something really spooky and interesting about it. Give us some examples for people who have no idea, who maybe see it but don't even realize they're seeing it. When you come into our exhibit, when it opens, when the self-help pandemic is finally over, you know, you see, for example, a Tomahawk missile.

The Tomahawk is considered the world's most advanced cruise missile. You see an Indian motorcycle. You see a lot of sports memorabilia, and we chose, in almost all cases, to use children's clothing, you know, onesies, things like that, to talk about how usually you become a fan when you're a kid. You've got to admit, it's a catchy little tune. As the season went along, the Atlanta Braves' tomahawk chops spread like wildfire through the stands. You see Elvis in an Indian headdress. And you see tons of advertising and magazine covers share.

Half-breed, that's all I ever heard. Half-breed. You see an episode of the Addams Family from the 60s. Almost every long-running TV show, situation comedy, sooner or later has an Indian episode. Why? It just makes sense, you know, it's American. What's the chief doing, John? Make Peter Pan keep big chief. You now middle flying eagle. So for most visitors, they come in there and they see things that trigger memories in their own life of watching that TV show or going to a school that had an Indian name. And when you put it all together, it becomes very powerful to see it

as opposed to something that's simply trivial and is there. And so what if we were the Braves in high school? It doesn't really mean anything. Indian motorcycles are cool. But then when you look at it all together, you realize it's kind of an obsession for Americans to generate this imagery over time. And there's a lot of negative about it, but some of it is actually positive. For me, it shows an openness to trying to think about what the history of the country is and how central Native Americans are in that history. Does it feel like sort of a one-sided conversation ultimately that

financial institutions, corporate entities, Kanye West on some of his merchandise that I saw in that exhibit, you know, they want to sort of recognize this rich, noble Native American culture, but maybe not spend the time and think about the experience of Native Americans in this country right now? What's the conversation that people should be having apart from, yeah, let's change the name of the Washington football team? Yeah, I think that's exactly the right question. And for us, it was about opening up a space where people can see this whole thing is much bigger. And for us, it was about opening up a space where people can see this whole thing is much bigger. And if the phenomenon of these images, you know, it's essentially brought up Kanye West. There's a Lynyrd Skynyrd poster that has almost the same motif.

It's an Indian skull feathers. And so what do Kanye West and Lynyrd Skynyrd have in common? I guess you could say they're politics right now, but I won't say that. But things that are radically diverse have nothing in common about the country. Motor oil, you know. Butter, right? Yes. They're just there. So the conversation needs to be, okay, is it right or wrong to have the butter maiden on Land O'Lakes?

Okay, that's okay. I'm not, that's a fine conversation. They got rid of it. But it's not like that solves anything. The real issue is why is all this great honoring only happening to us in these particular ways? Yeah. Are there other changes you would love to see happen in this country as they relate to Native American appropriation and culture? like the Supreme Court decision in Oklahoma, or when the president went to Tulsa and then the Black Hills in South Dakota. There's just been a really epic shift in the last 10 years about

attention to Native America in a way that there wasn't before. So that's really ultimately what we want is for Native people to be seen as part of contemporary American life. We're certainly trying to line in the sand as far as a museum. These sports teams should be renamed, no Indian anything. And we'll take positions on those things generally. But what we really want is an American public that feels like this history is part of them because this history is so central to the United States. And that's a very long-term project. And in terms of the reckoning that people are talking about,

it's been really inspiring to see so many Native people as far as part of Black Lives Matter. It's been really inspiring to see the leadership the tribal governments took in handling the pandemic and making really wise decisions about controlling the outbreaks on their community and that that's getting attention. So it is a lot of good things are actually happening even in this dark time. I'm glad you feel inspired. And if the Washington football team decides to choose the replacements, maybe you can accompany me to my first ever NFL game. Consider it a date. Excellent!

We'll get to see Keanu in person at the football game. That'll be so cool.