THURSDAY, MARCH 26,1992

THURSDAY, MARCH 26,1992

Keep the name

It’s not every week that we get to address an issue of local importance with national, international and historical repercussions. We are speaking of the controversy over the Washington Redskins’ name, and the misguided campaign by some to get team owner Jack Kent Cooke to change it.

When this era of political correctness first dawned, with it came a series of attacks on free expression that would be funny if they weren’t being taken so seriously by humorless idealogues who apparently thought they could intimidate their fellow man into conformity. There was the Ivy League school where a student was violently attacked for flying the Confederate flag. (An angry student, in protest, actually unfurled the Nazi flag from her window—that’s the kind of logic P.C. gets you). Some women, none we know, but apparently some, unhappy with the syllable “man” in woman, or “male” residing comfortably in female, want to be called gy notes, or something like that. Homosexuals, displeased at less-than-appealing gay characters in movies, are now standing outside cinemas, giving away the cliffhanger ending of “Basic Instinct” to unwary moviegoers. ~~

During the Fall Classic last year, the Atlanta Braves were picketed. A big to-do was made of the Redskins’ appearance in the Super Bowl. Television cameras, ever the instigators, waited outside for about 10 people to show up to protest.

Now there has been a series of District “dignitaries” going on the record for the ’Skins to change their name: the D.C. City Council, never able to ignore the tyranny of the minority, knuckled under with a resolution asking Jack Kent Cooke to change the name. The Washington Post, Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly and even Bandwagonmeister Tony Komheiser, have weighed in against the burgundy-and-gold. Most recently a D.C. radio station—we won’t deign to use its name—announced the preposterous policy of not referring to the Redskins as the Redskins or the Chiefs as the Chiefs. It’ll just have to be “Washington” or “Kansas City.” Give us a break, this has gone too far, and mark them off the season ticket list, Mr. Cooke, there’s plenty of real fans dying to take their places.

The owner should not doubt that there is a silent (and overwhelming) majority out here in Redskins country that backs his stated intent to keep the team symbol and name. Only a fool would think that the team’s traditional moniker is arf underhanded way for whites to keep the Red Man down. The Indians in this land have much to complain about, and we can only hope their next 400 years on this continent are better for them than the last 400 have been. But let’s start somewhere that will make a real difference (the Interior Department or the Bureau of Indian Affairs), not at Redskins Park.

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