"Red-skin" redirects here. For other uses, see Redskin.
"Red people" redirects here. For the Malaysian Internet supergroup, see RED People.
"Red Indians" redirects here. For the 2001 Malayalam film, see Red Indians (film).
It has been requested that the title of this article be changedto Redskin. Please see the relevant discussion on the discussion page. The page should not be moved unless the discussion is closed; summarizing the consensus achieved in support of the move.
Slang is language of an informal register that members of particular in-groups favor in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both.
Native Americans, also known as American Indians, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States, except Hawaii. There are over 500 federally recognized tribes within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. The term "American Indian" excludes Native Hawaiians and some Alaska Natives, while Native Americans are American Indians, plus Alaska Natives of all ethnicities. Native Hawaiians are not counted as Native Americans by the US Census, instead being included in the Census grouping of "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander".
In Canada, the First Nations are the predominant indigenous peoples in Canada south of the Arctic Circle. Those in the Arctic area are distinct and known as Inuit. The Métis, another distinct ethnicity, developed after European contact and relations primarily between First Nations people and Europeans. There are 634 recognized First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.
The origin of the choice of "red" to describe Native Americans in English is debated. While related terms were used in anthropological literature as early as the 17th century, labels based on skin-color entered everyday speech around the middle of the 18th century. "At the start of the eighteenth century, Indians and Europeans rarely mentioned the color of each other’s skins. By midcentury, remarks about skin color and the categorization of peoples by simple color-coded labels (red, white, black) had become commonplace."[7]
Although the term has almost disappeared from common use, it remains as the name of many sports teams, most prominently the Washington Redskins, and the term's meaning has been a significant point of controversy. That controversy has led to high schools in the United States changing their team name as a result of protest by Native Americans, government regulations, or voluntary action.
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Redskins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays its home games at FedExField in Landover, Maryland; its headquarters and training facility are at Inova Sports Performance Center at Redskins Park in Ashburn, Virginia and the Redskins Complex in Richmond, Virginia, respectively.
The Washington Redskins name controversy involves the name and logo of the Washington Redskins, a National Football League (NFL) franchise. Native Americans have been questioning the use of the name and image since the 1960s, while the topic has received widespread public attention since the 1990s. Native Americans demanding change include tribal nations, national tribal organizations, civil rights organizations, and individuals. The largest of these organizations, the National Congress of American Indians, counted the enrollment of its member tribes as totaling 1.2 million individuals in 2013. According to the American Psychological Association as of 2010, over 115 professional organizations representing civil rights, educational, athletic, and scientific experts have published resolutions or policies that state that the use of Native American names and/or symbols by non-native sports teams is a harmful form of ethnic stereotyping that promotes misunderstanding and prejudice, contributing to other problems faced by Native Americans. Public awareness of the issues has been growing based upon social science research on the harmful effects of stereotyping. The number of high school and college teams using the Redskins name has been declining steadily along with other Native American mascots. There is also a growing number of public officials, sports commentators and other journalists advocating a change.
Documents from the colonial period indicate that the use of "red" as an identifier by Native Americans for themselves emerged in the context of Indian-European diplomacy in the southeastern region of North America, before later being adopted by Europeans and becoming a generic label for all Native Americans.[8]:627–28
The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of America from the early 16th century until the incorporation of the colonies into the United States of America. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands launched major colonization programs in America. The death rate was very high among those who arrived first, and some early attempts disappeared altogether, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established within several decades.
Linguistic evidence indicates that, while some tribes may have used red to refer to themselves during the Pre-Columbian era based upon their origin stories,[8]:634 the general use of the term was in response to meeting people who called themselves "white" and their slaves "black".[8]:629 The choice of red rather than other colors may have been due to cultural associations, rather than skin color.[8]:632 Red and white were a dichotomy that had pervasive symbolic meanings in southeastern Native cultures which was less prevalent among northern tribes.[8]:632 While there was occasional use of "red" in Indian-European diplomacy in the northeast, it was still rare there even after it had become common in the southeast. Instead, "Indian" was translated into the native languages there as "men", "real people", or "original people".[8]:629–30 Usage in the northeast region by Europeans may have been largely limited to descriptions of tribes such as the Beothuk of Newfoundland, whose practice of painting their bodies and possessions with red ochre led Europeans to refer to them as "Red Indians".[9]
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continent, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during the Early Modern period.
The Beothuk were an indigenous people living on the island of Newfoundland.
Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study. An ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing the culture of a group. The word can thus be said to have a double meaning, which partly depends on whether it is used as a count noun or uncountable. The resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group.
Olive skin is a human skin color spectrum. It is often associated with pigmentation in the Type III to Type IV and Type V ranges of the Fitzpatrick scale. It generally refers to light or moderate brown, brownish, or tannish skin, and it is often described as having yellowish, greenish, or golden undertones.
François Bernier was a French physician and traveller. He was born at Joué-Etiau in Anjou. He was briefly personal physician to Mughal prince Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, and after Dara Shikoh's demise, was attached to the court of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, for around 12 years during his stay in India.
Early explorers and later Anglo-Americans termed Native Americans "light-skinned", "brown", "tawny", or "russet", but not "red" prior to the 19th century;[14]
Origins of redskin in English
Use of the English adjective "red" in reference to American Indians as a race is first recorded in the 1720s. The combination with "skin", to form the term "redskin", can be dated to 1769. It arises from a translation of French peaux rouges, which in turn had been written by the French translator from the Miami-Illinois language, in a letter sent by three chiefs of the Piankashaws to Col. John Wilkins. The term here refers to warriors specifically. The term "redskin" enters wider English usage only in the first half of the 19th century.[15]:4–5
Ives Goddard (2005) pointed out that what had previously been considered the earliest attestation of the term, a letter purported to have been written to an English living in Hadley, Massachusetts in 1699, was spurious.[16]
Roots in Native American language
Goddard's alternative etymology is that the term emerged from the speech of Native Americans themselves, and that the origin and use of the term in the late 18th and early 19th century was benign: when it first appeared "it came in the most respectful context and at the highest level. ... These are white people and Indians talking together, with the white people trying to ingratiate themselves".[17] The word later underwent a process of pejoration, by which it gained a negative connotation.[18] Goddard suggests that "redskin" emerged from French translations of Native American speech in Illinois and Missouri territories in the 18th century. He cites as the earliest example a 1769 set of "talks", or letters, from chiefs of the Piankeshaw to an English officer at Fort de Chartres. One letter included "si quelques peaux Rouges", which was translated as "if any redskins", and the second included "tout les peaux rouges", which was translated as "all the redskins".[15]:4 However, in an interview Goddard admitted that it is impossible to verify whether the native words were accurately translated.[17]
The term appeared in an August 22, 1812, meeting between President James Madison and a delegation of chiefs from western tribes. There, the response of Osage chief "No Ears" (Osage: Tetobasi) to Madison's speech included the statement, "I know the manners of the whites and the red skins," while French Crow, principal chief of the Wahpekute band of Santee Sioux, was recorded as having said, "I am a red-skin, but what I say is the truth, and notwithstanding I came a long way I am content, but wish to return from here."[15]:14–15
The earliest known appearance of the term in print occurred in 1813, in an article in the Weekly Register quoting a letter dated August 27, 1813. It concerned an expedition during the War of 1812 led by General Benjamin Howard against Indians in the Illinois and Mississippi territories: "The expedition will be 40 days out, and there is no doubt but we shall have to contend with powerful hordes of red skins ..."[19]
However, while these usages may have been earlier, they may not have been disseminated widely. (For instance, while the 1812 meeting with President Madison was contemporaneously recorded, the records were not published until 2004. Goddard suggests that a key usage was in a 20 July 1815 speech by Meskwaki chief Black Thunder at the treaty council at Portage des Sioux, in which he is recorded as stating, "My Father – Restrain your feelings, and hear ca[l]mly what I shall say. I shall tell it to you plainly, I shall not speak with fear and trembling. I feel no fear. I have no cause to fear. I have never injured you, and innocence can feel no fear. I turn to all, red skins and white skins, and challenge an accusation against me." This speech was published widely, and Goddard speculates that it reached James Fenimore Cooper. In Cooper's novels The Pioneers (published in 1823) and The Last of the Mohicans (1826), both Native American and white characters use the term. These novels were widely distributed, and can be credited with bringing the term to "universal notice". The first time the term appears in Bartlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms" (in 1858), Goddard notes, the illustrative reference is to Last of the Mohicans.[15]:15–16
Johnathan Buffalo, historic preservation director of the Meskwaki, said that in the 1800s "redskins" was used by the tribe for self-identification. Similarly, they identified others as "whiteskins" or "blackskins".[20] Goddard's evidence for Native language usage includes a 1914 phonetic transcription of the Meskwaki language in which both eesaawinameshkaata 'one with brown skin' and meeshkwinameshkaata 'one with red skin' were used to refer to Indians, while waapeshkinameshkaanichini 'one with white skin, white person' was used to refer to Europeans.[21] However, the pre-contact Meskwaki use of "red" in identifying themselves did not refer to skin color, but to their origin stories as the "red-earth" people.[22]:239
Historian Darren Reid of Coventry University states it is difficult for historians to document anything with certainty since Native Americans, as a non-literate society, did not produce the written sources upon which historians rely. Instead, what is cited as Native American usage was generally attributed to them by European writers. Any use of "red" in its various forms, including redskin, by Native Americans to refer to themselves reflected their need to use the language of the times in order to be understood by Europeans.[23]
Sociologist James V. Fenelon makes a more explicit statement that Goddard's article is poor scholarship, given that the conclusion of the origin and usage by Natives as "entirely benign" is divorced from the socio-historical realities of hostility and racism from which it emerged.[24]
Pejoration
The pejoration of the term "redskin" arguably begins as soon as its introduction in the early 19th century. A linguistic analysis of 42 books published between 1875 and 1930 found that negative contexts for the use of "redskin" were significantly more frequent than positive ones. However, the use of the word "Indian" in a similarly selected set of books was nearly the same, with more frequent negative than positive contexts, indicating that it was not the term "redskin" that was loaded pejoratively, but that its usage represents a generally negative attitude towards its referent.[25] The word was first listed in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary in 1898 as "often contemptuous."[26]
Sociologist Irving Lewis Allen suggests that slang identifiers for ethnic groups based upon physical characteristics, including "redskin", are by nature derogatory, emphasizing the difference between the speaker and the target.[27] However, Luvell Anderson of the University of Memphis, in his paper "Slurring Words", argues that for a word to be a slur, the word must communicate ideas beyond identifying a target group, and that slurs are offensive because the additional data contained in those words differentiates those individuals from otherwise accepted groups.[28] In the same sense that "nigger" originated as meaning nothing more than "black-skinned", redskin also took on an increasingly negative meaning.[18]
Some Native American activists in the 21st century, in contradiction of the etymological evidence discussed above, assert that "redskin" refers directly to the bloody, red scalp or other body part collected for bounty.[29][30] While this claim is associated in the media with litigants in the Washington Redskins trademark dispute; Amanda Blackhorse[31] and Suzan Shown Harjo,[32] the NCAI's support indicates that the belief is widespread. Goddard (2005) denies any direct connection to scalping, and says there is a lack of evidence for the claim.[15]:1[33] King (2016) argues that the lack of direct evidence for the assertion does not mean that those making the claim are "wrong to draw an association between a term that empathizes an identity based upon skin color and a history that commodified Native American body parts".[34]
The term "red-skin" was, in fact used in conjunction with scalp hunting in the 19th century. In 1863 a Winona, Minnesota, newspaper, the Daily Republican, printed an announcement: "The state reward for dead Indians has been increased to $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory. This sum is more than the dead bodies of all the Indians east of the Red River are worth."[35] A news story published by the Atchison Daily Champion in Atchison, Kansas, on October 9, 1885, tells of the settlers' "hunt for redskins, with a view of obtaining their scalps", worth $250.[36] In his early career as the owner of a newspaper in South Dakota, L. Frank Baum wrote an editorial upon the death of Chief Sitting Bull in which he advocates the annihilation of all remaining Redskins in order to secure the safety of white settlers, and because "better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are."[37]
When Hollywood westerns were most popular, roughly 1920–1970, the term "redskins" was often used to refer to Native Americans when war was imminent or in progress.[38] In the Washington Redskins trademark dispute, the main issue was the meaning of the term in the period when the trademark registrations were issued, 1967–1990. The linguistic expert for the petitioner, Dr. Geoffrey Nunberg, successfully argued that whatever its origins, "redskins" was a slur at that time based upon passages from books and newspapers and movie clips, in which the word is inevitably associated with contempt, derision, condescension, or sentimental paeans to the noble savage.[39]John McWhorter, an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, had compared the evolution of the name into a slur to that of other racial terms such as "Oriental" which also acquired implied meanings associated with contempt.[40]
Current use
The Redskin Theater in Anadarko, Oklahoma. The town proclaims itself to be the "Indian Capital of the Nation", and its population is 41% Native American.
In the United States, "redskin" is regarded as a racial epithet by some,[41] but as neutral by others, including some Native Americans.[42] The American Heritage style guide advises that "the term redskin evokes an even more objectionable stereotype" than the use of red as a racial adjective by outsiders,[43] while others urge writers to use the term only in a historical context.[44] In modern dictionaries of American English it is labeled "usually offensive",[2] "disparaging",[3][4] "insulting",[5] or "taboo".[6]
Use among Native Americans
Three predominantly Native American schools use the name for their athletic teams, two of which serve reservations: Red Mesa High School in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona where the student body is 99% Native American.[45] and Wellpinit High School, Wellpinit, Washington.[46] The principal of Red Mesa said in 2014 that use of the word outside American Indian communities should be avoided because it could perpetuate "the legacy of negativity that the term has created."[47] In 2014, Wellpinit High School, located on the Spokane Indian Reservation, voted to keep the Redskins name.[48] Native American writer and attorney Gyasi Ross compares Native American use of variations of the word "Redskin" with African-American use of variations of the word "Nigger". Use of these terms by some members of minority communities does not mean that these words may be used by outsiders. Ross also notes that while activism on the issue may be from a minority of Native Americans, this is due to most being concerned with more immediate issues, but also says "The presentation of the name 'Redskins' is problematic for many Native Americans because it identifies Natives in a way that the vast majority of Natives simply don't identity ourselves."[49]
Numerous civil rights, educational, athletic, and academic organizations consider any use of native names/symbols by non-native sports teams to be a harmful form of ethnic stereotyping which should be eliminated.[50]
The R-word is the moral equivalent of the N-word. It packs the same level of bigotry and insensitivity for Native Americans as any other racial slur. We cannot tolerate the NFL’s continued commitment to normalizing this demeaning characterization of Native Americans. The success of the Washington football franchise does not depend on the name of its team, but rather the talent of its players and leadership. The NFL must abandon its tone-deaf culture as it relates to people of color and change the hurtful name of this team.
The controversy regarding Native mascots in general, and use of the name Redskins, is most prominent in the name of the Washington Redskins, a National Football League team. Public protest of the name began in 1968, with a resolution by the National Congress of American Indians.[52] Native American groups and their supporters argue that since they view the word "redskin" as offensive, it is inappropriate for an NFL team to continue to use it, regardless of whether any offense is intended.[25][53][54] A claim by Pete Hegseth on May 26, 2014 in a segment on "Outnumbered" that Redskins is "used historically" as "a term of respect" was deemed to be "Mostly False" by PolitiFact.[55]
In a 2004 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, 90% of those who identified themselves as American Indians answered that they were "not bothered" by the name "Redskins" being used for the Washington football team.[56] However, in a commentary published soon after that poll, fifteen Native American scholars collaborated on a critique that stated that there were so many flaws in the Annenberg study that rather than being a measure of Native American opinion, it was an expression of white privilege and colonialism.[57] In August 2015, the Glushko-Samuelson Law Clinic at American University published the text of a memo written by Chintan Turakhia, Sr. and Courtney Kennedy, both vice-presidents and senior researches at Abt SRBI, the survey organization responsible for collecting the data for the 2004 survey. The memo had been prepared at the request of Ken Winneg, Annenberg's Managing Director of Survey Research. The memo made it clear that the survey should not be taken as an accurate reflection of Native American attitudes at the time, since the methods used to survey the general population are not effective for generating representative samples for all possible subgroups that may be of interest. Some subgroups, including Native Americans, have unique characteristics (e.g., multiple languages, unusual residential patterns) that require specialized survey designs if they are to be measured rigorously.[58]
An alternative method to standard opinion polls was used by the Center for Indigenous Peoples Studies at California State University, San Bernardino. A survey of 400 individuals, with 98 individuals positively identified as Native Americans, found that 67% agreed with the statement that "Redskins" is offensive and racist. The response from non-natives was almost the opposite, with 68% responding that the name is not offensive.[59][60]
In May 2016, The Washington Post asked the same question from the Annenberg survey in its general opinion poll when a respondent identified themselves as Native American, producing the same results, that 90% of the 504 respondents were "not bothered" by the team's name.[61][62][63] While taking steps to address some of the issues in the earlier survey, many of the conditions remained the same, and the results were immediately criticized by supporters of a name change. NCAI Executive Director Jacqueline Pata stated "The survey doesn't recognize the psychological impacts these racist names and imagery have on American Indian and Alaska Natives. It is not respectful to who we are as Native people. This poll still doesn't make it right."[64] The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) issued a statement calling the publication of the poll, and the reporting of its significance, as not only inaccurate and misleading but unethical. "The reporters and editors behind this story must have known that it would be used as justification for the continued use of these harmful, racist mascots. They were either willfully malicious or dangerously naïve in the process and reporting used in this story, and neither is acceptable from any journalistic institution."[65]
On June 18, 2014, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) cancelled the six trademarks held by the team in a two-to-one decision that held that the term "redskins" is disparaging to a "substantial composite of Native Americans", and this is demonstrated "by the near complete drop-off in usage of 'redskins' as a reference to Native Americans beginning in the 1960s".[66][67] Evidence of disparagement submitted by the petitioners in the TTAB case include the frequent references to "scalping" made by sportswriters for sixty years when reporting the Redskins loss of a game,[68] and passages from movies made from the 1940s to the 1960s using "redskin" to refer to Native Americans as a savage enemy.[69] A linguistics expert for the team unsuccessfully argued that the name is merely a descriptive term no different than other uses of color to differentiate people by race.[70] The linguistic expert for the petitioners, Dr. Geoffrey Nunberg, argued that whatever its origins, "redskins" was a slur at the time of the trademark registrations, based upon the passages from books and newspapers and movie clips, in which the word is inevitably associated with contempt, derision, condescension, or sentimental paeans to the noble savage.[39] Although the USPTO decision was upheld upon appeal,[71] on June 19, 2017 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in another case, Matal v. Tam, that the disparagement clause of the Latham Act violated the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause.[72] Both the Native American petitioners and the Justice Department have withdrawn from any further litigation now that the Supreme Court has rendered the legal issue moot.[73]
As of early 2013 the Capitol News Service (CNS) in Maryland listed 62 high schools using the Redskins name. Twenty-eight high schools in 18 states had dropped the Redskins name during the prior 25 years, either voluntarily or as a result of a combination of state legal action and protests from Native American groups.[45] Since the CNS list was compiled, this trend has continued, with an additional thirteen high school teams having changed, plus one closed,[74] leaving a total of 48 high schools continuing to use the name.
Nigga is a colloquial term used in African-American Vernacular English that began as an eye dialect form of the word "nigger", an ethnic slur against black people. In some dialects of English, the word is pronounced the same as nigger in non-rhotic speech.
Chink is an English-language ethnic slur usually referring to a person of Chinese ethnicity. The word is also sometimes indiscriminately used against people of East Asian appearance. The use of the term is considered offensive.
The Native American name controversy is an ongoing discussion about the changing terminology used by indigenous peoples of the Americas to describe themselves, as well as how they prefer to be referred to by others. Preferred terms vary primarily by region and age. As indigenous people and communities are diverse, there is no consensus on naming, aside from the fact that most people prefer to be referred to by their specific nation.
Pro-Football, Inc. v. Harjo, 415 F.3d 44, is a case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia considered the decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to cancel the registration of the Washington Redskins football team, based on the claim that the name was disparaging to Native Americans. The Court of Appeals did not actually reach the merits of the TTAB's decision; it sent the case back to the trial court for consideration of a procedural issue.
Disparagement, in United States trademark law, is a statutory cause of action that permits a party to petition the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to cancel a trademark registration that "may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute." Unlike claims regarding the validity of the mark, a disparagement claim can be brought "at any time," subject to equitable defenses such as laches.
The English word Squaw is an ethnic and sexual slur, historically used for Indigenous North American women. Contemporary use of the term, especially by non-Natives, is considered offensive, derogatory, misogynist and racist.
Suzan Shown Harjo is an advocate for American Indian rights. She is a poet, writer, lecturer, curator, and policy advocate, who has helped Native peoples recover more than one million acres (4,000 km²) of tribal lands. After co-producing the first Indian news show in the nation for WBAI radio while living in New York City, and producing other shows and theater, in 1974 she moved to Washington, DC, to work on national policy issues. She served as Congressional liaison for Indian affairs in the President Jimmy Carter administration and later as president of the National Council of American Indians.
The use of terms and images referring to Native Americans/First Nations as the name or mascot for a sports team is a topic of public controversy in the United States and Canada. Since the 1960s, as part of the indigenous civil rights movements, there have been a number of protests and other actions by Native Americans and their supporters. The protests target the prominent use of such names and images by professional franchises such as the Cleveland Indians ; and the Washington Redskins. Changes, such as the retirement of Native American names and mascots in a wide array of schools, has been a steady trend since the 1970s.
In the English language, Negro is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Negroid heritage. The term can be construed as offensive, inoffensive, or completely neutral, largely depending on the region and/or country where it is used. It has various equivalents in other languages of Europe. From the latest United States census figures, approximately 36,000 Americans identify their ethnicity as "negro".
The Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation (OAF) is a nonprofit organization started by Daniel Snyder, controlling owner of the Washington Redskins American football team. It was formed under a climate of controversy around the name of the team, which some consider offensive. According to a letter from Snyder, it "will address the urgent challenges plaguing Indian country based on what tribal leaders tell us they need most." In the letter to season ticket holders, announcing the Foundation, Snyder stated that he and other team representatives had visited 26 reservations in twenty states to " listen and learn first-hand about the views, attitudes, and experiences of the Tribes ". The letter quotes Pueblo of Zuni Governor Arlen Quetawki, saying " I appreciated your sincerity to learn about our culture and the real life issues we face on a daily basis ". Torrez - Martinez of Desert Cahuilla was quoted in the letter as saying, " There are Native Americans everywhere that 100 percent support the Redskins " Snyder also used his letter to cite instances of support for the team name by other Native Americans during his visits.
Amanda Blackhorse is a social worker and member of the Navajo people who is known for her work as an activist on the Washington Redskins name controversy. She is the lead plaintiff in Blackhorse v. Pro-Football, Inc.
The Washington Redskins trademark dispute was a legal effort by Native Americans to define the term "redskin" to be an offensive and disparaging racial slur to prevent the owners of the Washington Redskins football team from being able to maintain federal trademark protection for this name. These efforts have primarily been carried forward in two cases brought before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). While prevailing in the most recent case in which the trademarks were cancelled, petitioners have withdrawn for further litigation now that the legal issue has become moot due to a decision in another case which found the relevant portion of the trademark law to be an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech.
Sports teams named "Redskins" are part of the larger Native American mascot controversy regarding the use of Native American names, images and symbols by non-native sports teams. Teams of this name have received particular public attention due to the fact that the term "redskin" is now generally regarded as disparaging and offensive.
As part of the Native American mascot controversy, the Cleveland Indians logo, Chief Wahoo, has drawn particular criticism from some activist groups as an offensive racial caricature. Furthermore, the use of "Indians" as the name of a team is also part of the controversy which has led over 115 activists groups to publish resolutions or policies that state that any use of Native American names and/or symbols by non-native sports teams is a harmful form of ethnic stereotyping that promote misunderstanding and prejudice which contributes to other problems faced by Native Americans.
Controversy over the name of the Washington Redskins has led to the use of public opinion polling to establish whether the term "redskin" is insulting to Native Americans, and whether it should be changed. Poll results show that a majority of the general population and a large majority of Native Americans are not offended by the name, and have criticized some scholars and Native American leaders as being erroneous, misleading, and indicative of white privilege.
The Chicago Blackhawks name and logo controversy refers to the controversy surrounding the name and logo of the Chicago Blackhawks, a National Hockey League (NHL) ice hockey team based in Chicago, Illinois. The use of terms and images referring to Native Americans/First Nations as the name or mascot for a sports team is a topic of public controversy in the United States and Canada. Since the 1960s, as part of the indigenous civil rights movements, there have been a number of protests and other actions by Native Americans and their supporters targeting the more prominent use of such names and images by professional franchises such as the Cleveland Indians ; and the Washington Redskins. While not receiving the same level of public attention, the Blackhawks are part of the larger issue.
1 2 "Redskin". Dictionary.com. Retrieved November 7, 2014. noun, Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. 1. a North American Indian.
1 2 "definition of redskin". Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved November 7, 2014.
↑ Shoemaker, Nancy (2004). "Race". A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN9780195167924.
↑ Blumenbach, J. F. 1779. Handbuch der Naturgeschichte vol. 1, pp. 63f
↑ Charles Hamilton Smith, Samuel Kneeland, The Natural History of the Human Species (1851), p. 47, listing "Red Race" as one of the six races identified by René Lesson, Description de mammifères et d'oiseaux récemment découverts; précédée d'un Tableau sur les races humaines (1847), i.e. White (Caucasian), Dusky (Indian), Orange-colored (Malay), Yellow (Mongoloid), Red (Carib and American) and Black (Negroid).
↑ The letter supposedly contains both "ye Red Skin Men" and "ye Red Skins". Based on this source, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) had suggested that the term was specifically applied to the Delaware Indians and "referred not to the natural skin color of the Delaware, but to their use of vermilion face paint and body paint". Goddard pointed out that OED had mis-dated the source, the letter was in fact a piece of historical fiction written in 1900.The OED agreed with Goddard's findings, stating that the quotation was "subsequently found to be misattributed; the actual text was written in 1900 by an author claiming, for purposes of historical fiction, to be quoting an earlier letter". David Skinner (18 December 2013). "The Real History of the Word Redskin". Slate.
↑ Jones, William (1901). "Episodes in the Culture-Hero Myth of the Sauks and Foxes". The Journal of American Folklore. 14 (55): 225–39. doi:10.2307/533350. JSTOR533350.
↑ Suzan Shown Harjo (17 June 2005). "Dirty Word Games". Indian Country Today. Archived from the original on 10 October 2007. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
↑ J. Gordon Hylton (2010). "Before the Redskins Were the Redskins: The Use of Native American Team Names in the Formative Era of American Sports, 1857–1933". North Dakota Law Review. 86: 879–903.
↑ "Slang epithet … Redskin is regarded as highly offensive" to native Americans Herbst, Philip (1997). Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States. Intercultural Press. p.197. ISBN1877864978.
↑ "Redskin". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Retrieved July 20, 2012. n. Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a Native American.
↑ D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark (2005). "Indigenous Voice and Vision as Commodity in a Mass-Consumption Society: The Colonial Politics of Public Opinion Polling". American Indian Quarterly. University of Nebraska Press. 29 (1/2 (Winter–Spring)): 228–238. doi:10.1353/aiq.2005.0039. JSTOR4138809.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
