The Redskins'Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima Problem

Photo byFLICKR/ableman/1431157932/ A THROWBACK TO ADIFFERENT ERA?Redskins quarterbacks Mark Brunell, Jason Campbell andTodd Collins take to FedEx Field recently in their 1971 "throwback"uniforms.

ALEXANDRIA, VA - For years now our beloved professional football home team has had a bad reputation. Lately its owner Dan Snyder has been a frequent target, with fans calling him arrogant and out of touch, and calling for his ouster.  
 
No, it has nothing to do with their won-loss record or game-by-game performance, which has garnered a rising tide of outrage. Rather, this negativity towards the Washington Redskins has derived from earlier times, existing even when the 'Skins regularly made it to the Super Bowl.
 

Photo by FLICKR/pejnolan/1828358045/ CHIEF BLACK SPARROWHAWKwrote in 1852: "Black Hawk is a true Indian, and disdains to crylike  a woman. He feels for his wife, his children and friends.  But he does notcare for himself. He cares for his nation and the Indians. They will suffer. Helaments their fate. The white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse-theypoison the heart, it is not pure with them."

This heated controversy is based on the very appellation of DC’s team: “Redskins.”
 
Many groups have deemed it a malevolent name. The United Methodist Church’s 2008 Book of Resolutions considers symbols like the Redskins’ mascot to be “racist and dehumanizing.”
 
The National Conference of American Indians released a statement saying the Redskins moniker “perpetrates a centuries-old stereotype."
 
Despite these fierce words, last week the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal against the National Football League over its usage of the term “Redskin,” at least temporarily halting the cause.
 
Those on both the proverbial and literal sidelines may question the point of all this. Though activists maintain that the mascot and name of Washington’s team is a product of a more bigoted age, the team itself claims that the name was an affectionate homage to a former coach. And most fans could really care less.
 
Odds are good that 99.9 percent of those who bleed burgundy and gold hold no enmity towards Native Americans, much less interpret their favorite gridiron team’s logo as a great way to keep them down. Indeed, this situation is related to the Florida Seminoles, another controversial sports team, found at Florida State University.
 
In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association attempted to ban the use of American Indian mascots for championship games.
 
Interestingly enough, in a brief issued in response to the NCAA’s decision FSU President T.K. Wetherell decried “the complete lack of appreciation for cultural diversity shown by the National Collegiate Athletic Association's executive committee, which announced…a policy banning schools using Native American names and symbols from hosting NCAA championship events.”
 

Photo by Flickr/smartjunco/2170540114/ IDLED.Dan Snyder's plane sits on the tarmac at Washington DullesInternational Airport.

This means both sides in this politically correct game appealed to diversity to justify their actions.
 
Even more interesting was that the Seminole Tribe of Florida itself gave permission for FSU to use their name, as the Seminole’s governing body passed a resolution saying “Seminole Tribe of Florida has an established relationship with Florida State University, which includes its permission to use the name, 'Seminole,' as well as various Seminole symbols and images, such as Chief Osceola, for educational purposes and the Seminole Tribe of Florida wishes to go on record that it has not opposed, and, in fact, supports the continued use of the name 'Seminole.'"
 
This is furthered complicated by other Indian rights groups, including tribes closely related to the Seminoles, which still believe that FSU promotes racist imagery.
 
All of these arguments and causes are happening, of course, while many other sports logos that could be construed as bigoted go unmolested by the diversity-obsessed. Lest we forget Notre Dame has the Fighting Irish, which currently includes a short man wearing an all-green suit and a cloverleaf in a fisticuffs position.
 

Photo byFlickr/photos/keithallison/3866149769/ Hoisting the flag to footballbattle.

Arguably this degrades Irish Americans, who have a history of oppression and injustice all their own. On the professional level, the Boston Celtics arguably could serve as another attack on immigrants and descendents of immigrants from the Emerald Isle. Yet, as with the Redskins, few Notre Dame or Boston Celtics fans see themselves as advocating for racial degradation.
 
Some are offended, but many are not.
 
The former could argue that numbers should mean nothing, for there was a time when few were offended by things we acknowledge today as being blatantly racist, like the blackface or the n-word. Since the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s traces of the racially nefarious past remain throughout the nation.
 
Most of these surviving symbols are barely noticeable, such as Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima. Yet they exist. The question remains whether we should whitewash every last symbol no matter how unracist it is perceived by modern America or we should simply leave them where they are, making the decision to ignore a vocal minority.
 
If we pick the former, we will have a lot of work before us. If we pick the latter, then some symbols that may indeed be unjustifiably cruel will be allowed to manifest in future generations.
 
I would like to believe a middle ground exist somewhere between them.
 
Michael Gryboski is a Local Kicks columnist. He may be contacted at Mcgryboski@aol.com