I love the Washington Redskins and I’m ready for a name change
Today 50 members of the Senate sent a letter to the National Football League encouraging the leadership to pressure the Washington Redskins to change their name. The letter reads in part:
“Today, we urge you and the National Football League to send the same clear message as the NBA did: that racism and bigotry have no place in professional sports. It’s time for the NFL to endorse a name change for the Washington, D.C. football team. The despicable comments made by Mr. Sterling have opened up a national conversation about race relations. We believe this conversation is an opportunity for the NFL to take action to remove the racial slur from the name of one of its marquee franchises.”
I just so happen to be a die-hard Redskins fan. I’m one of those annoyingly weird guys you see out at the grocery store on Sunday before games wearing his team jersey. I have not missed a televised live game in a decade. Family planning centered around the NFL season and my dog’s chew toy is always some dismembered version of Tony Romo or Jason Witten. I also have no issue with my beloved team changing their name.
Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has stood his ground, even writing a letter to strangely obsessed folks like myself vowing to keep the moniker.
^My personal game day prep station
I see both sides, those who argue that this is just another form of out of control PC – that there’s a tradition and that the organization has received support from various tribes. I also know the name we’re talking about here is R-E-D-S-K-I-N-S.
We can dance all we want to around it and this would be a strange adjustment to say the least for a crazed fanatic such as myself to rally behind a new name, but I’ve come to accept that “Redskins” is callous enough to be rightfully offensive to many people I respect.
I even have my own suggestion for a new team name… The Washington Filibusters! That’s D.C. to the core, and our new mascot could be this big immovable blob that we forklift out at halftime when we’re losing (not a rare occurrence as of late for my team) and it could just lay there not allowing either team to finish. Hey, it’s an idea…
Anyways, I love the Washington Redskins. I’d still love ’em if they were called something else even if that means having to learn a new song other than “Hail To the Redskins.” “Pop Rocks and Tootsie Pops” could work until a new song was written…
So yeah, I guess I’m saying it’s time for a change and I’m not just talking about the defensive secondary. #HTT?
PHOTOS: Me
