The debate over the appropriateness of Native American team names rages on. Whatever the propriety of generic Native American team names like Indians, Chiefs, Braves, or Warriors, or tribal names like Utes, Chippewas, or Seminoles, there seems to be a widespread belief that the term \u201cRedskins\u201d is especially offensive and insulting to Native Americans. How this perception came about is somewhat puzzling, as it appears to be of relatively recent origin.<\/p>\n
There is little evidence that the perception of \u201credskin\u201d as an inherently offensive term for Native American existed before the late 1970\u2019s or early 1980\u2019s. Traditionally, the word \u201credskin\u201d was viewed as a synonym for Indian or Native American and did not carry the sort of negative connotations that have long attached to ethnic slurs like \u201cchink,\u201d \u201cwetback,\u201d \u201ckike,\u201d or \u201cnigger.\u201d Sportswriters covering teams with Indians nicknames during the first three quarters of the twentieth century routinely substituted \u201cRedskins\u201d for \u201cIndians\u201d or \u201cBraves\u201d in search of variety, and they apparently did so without being aware that this alternative word choice was more offensive than the original.<\/p>\n
Although the name \u201cRedskins\u201d was earlier used by the Muskogee, Oklahoma, minor league baseball team and the Miami University of Ohio football team, the Redskins name is today primarily associated with the Washington team in the National Football League.<\/p>\n
The team we now know as the Washington Redskins began its existence in 1932 as the Boston Braves. The name was changed to \u201cRedskins\u201d the following year. The new name was chosen in conjunction with the team\u2019s relocation from Braves Park (named after Boston\u2019s National League baseball team) to Fenway Park.<\/p>\n
The name change was also consistent with team owner George Preston Marshall\u2019s plan to market the team as one playing in the tradition of \u201cIndian football.\u201d (In the early 20th century, Native Americans were widely believed to be especially talented when it came to football, as borne out by the success of Indian college teams like Carlisle and Haskell and the Oorang Indians, an all-Indian NFL team from 1922 and 1923 which, like Carlisle a decade earlier, featured the great Indian athlete Jim Thorpe on its roster.)<\/p>\n
Marshall\u2019s plan for Indian football included hiring an \u201cIndian\u201d coach and several Native American Players, as well as adopting an Indian head logo and adorning all the players with war paint during games. This goal, of course, could have been accomplished just as easily had the team retained the name \u201cBraves.\u201d Moreover, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Marshall chose the name \u201cRedskins\u201d because he thought it was pejorative.<\/p>\n
(It is not at all clear why anyone would name a team using a non-ironic ethnic slur, since to do so would be to impute supposedly unfavorable characteristics to one\u2019s own players.)<\/p>\n
Most likely, the name Redskins was chosen because it fit with Marshall\u2019s plan to revive Indian football and because of the name\u2019s similarity to Red Sox, in whose park the team was now playing. (The name \u201cIndians\u201d was apparently reserved for the NFL\u2019s on again-off again Cleveland team.)<\/p>\n
While one could argue that Marshall\u2019s planned use of Native American imagery was a misappropriation of Native American cultural property, such an argument would apply whether the team was called the Braves or Redskins.<\/p>\n
The historical record, in fact, shows that before the 20th century Native Americans frequently used the adjective \u201cred\u201d in reference to themselves and that the term \u201credskin\u201d may have originated as a literal translation of a Native American term used to differentiate Indians from other Americans.<\/p>\n
Moreover, widely used English language dictionaries in use as recently as the 1950\u2019s and 1960\u2019s reflect no acknowledgement that the term \u201credskin\u201d was understood as disparaging to Native Americans.<\/p>\n
For example, the 1952 edition of the Universal Dictionary of the English Language, described \u201credskin\u201d as a \u201cNative American Indian, a Red Man\u201d (p. 981), but makes no reference to the word being offensive. The American College Dictionary (1956 ed., p. 1016); The Grosset Webster Dictionary (1957 ed., p. 1016); and Webster\u2019s New International Dictionary, Unabridged 2nd Edition (1957 ed., p. 2088) all define \u201credskin\u201d as a \u201cNorth American Indian,\u201d again, with no indication that the term was considered offensive. In The American Heritage Dictionary of the American Language (1969 ed., p. 1092), produced more than a decade later, the same definition is given, but with the qualification that the term is \u201cinformal\u201d (which may be a recognition that \u201credskin\u201d was passing out of everyday usage by the end of the 1960\u2019s).<\/p>\n
In fact, it was not until the 1983 editions of Webster\u2019s Third International Dictionary and Collegiate Dictionary, 9th Edition that the Miriam Webster Company, the country\u2019s leading publisher of \u201cserious\u201d dictionaries, added the cautionary phrase \u201cusually taken to be offensive,\u201d to its previous definition of \u201credskin,\u201d which was simply \u201cA North American Indian.\u201d<\/p>\n
In contrast, the same dictionaries from the 1950\u2019s and 1960\u2019s clearly indicate that the word \u201cnigger\u201d is understood to be offensive and derogatory. The comments so indicating range from \u201ccolloquial, contemptuous\u201d (Universal Dictionary, p. 774) and \u201coffensive\u201d (American College Dictionary p. 820) to \u201csubstandard, now chiefly contemptuously\u201d (Webster\u2019s New International, p. 1651) and \u201cvulgar\u201d (American Heritage Dictionary p. 887). The Grosset-Webster Dictionary omitted the word altogether, presumably because it was in such bad taste.<\/p>\n
While it is, of course, easy to find examples of pre-1980\u2019s writings that disparage Native Americans while referring to them as Redskins (like Earl Emmons\u2019 1915 Redskin Rimes), it is even easier to find similar examples from the same era that use the word Indian while making derogatory comments (most famously, Gen. Philip Sheridan\u2019s much repeated observation that \u201cThe only good Indian is a dead Indian\u201d). Before the 1970\u2019s, if not the 1980\u2019s, there was a clear consensus that the word \u201credskin\u201d was simply a synonym for \u201cNorth American Indian\u201d and was not widely recognized as a particularly offensive label.<\/p>\n
In contrast, more recent dictionaries clearly identify the term \u201credskin\u201d as disparaging. The Online Oxford Dictionary<\/a> describes it as \u201cdated and offensive.\u201d Similarly, Merriam-Webster\u2019s<\/a> online dictionary identifies it as \u201cusually offensive,\u201d while the online Thefreedictionary<\/a> defines it as \u201cused as a disparaging term for a Native American,\u201d and further classifies the term as \u201coffensive slang.\u201d<\/p>\n So what caused the meaning of the word Redskin to change when it did? Why did it become clearly offensive in the late 1970\u2019s and the early 1980\u2019s, when it has not been perceived in that way earlier in the century?<\/p>\n First of all, the meanings of descriptive adjectives, especially those with racial or ethnic connotations, do change over time. In my childhood, spent in the rural South during the final years of the Jim Crow era, we were taught that African-Americans preferred to be called \u201ccolored\u201d or \u201cNegroes,\u201d and that to refer to such a person as \u201cblack\u201d to his or her face would be insulting. I think this belief was generally held throughout the United States in the late 1950\u2019s, and accurately expressed the views of most African-Americans as well (re: Negro College Fund and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).<\/p>\n However, a decade later \u201cblack\u201d had become the descriptor of choice for African-Americans, while \u201ccolored\u201d and \u201cNegro\u201d had been cast into a linguistic dustbin. What was proper in 1959 had become awkward and unacceptable by 1969.<\/p>\n Moreover, beginning in the late 1960\u2019s, the American Indian Movement and other Native American organizations began what turned out to be a largely successful campaign to convince other Americans that most of the stereotypical images of Native Americans in American popular culture were wildly inaccurate and insulting.<\/p>\n No art form contained more insulting images than the traditional American western. The 1970\u2019s came at the end of an era in which the \u201cWestern\u201d had been one of the dominant genres of American film, television, and popular literature. In westerns, the term \u201credskins\u201d was regularly used in reference to nomadic plains Indians who were usually portrayed as \u201con the warpath.\u201d<\/p>\n This repeated association of \u201credskins\u201d with Indians of the American west in the post-Civil War era probably helped create an impression that a \u201credskin\u201d was not just any Indian, but one that was particularly \u201csavage.\u201d As the notion that Native Americans were \u201csavages\u201d became increasingly untenable in the 1979\u2019s and 1980\u2019s, the word \u201credskin,\u201d now increasing associated with the Indians portrayed in Westerns, may have lost its original generic qualities.<\/p>\n A second explanation comes from the fact the word \u201credskin\u201d obviously uses a color to describe an ethnic group. While \u201cblack\u201d and \u201cwhite\u201d became, somewhat ironically, the terms of choice identifying Negroes and Caucasians in the 1960\u2019s, in the same era the practice of referring to Asians as \u201cyellow\u201d became verboten. Presumably, this stemmed from a belief that the use of the \u201cyellow\u201d label (as in \u201cyellow peril\u201d) was a manifestation of anti-Asian racism. Social pressure to drop \u201cyellow\u201d references did not affect the use of the terms \u201cblack\u201d and \u201cwhite,\u201d but it may have had some impact on public attitudes toward defining Native Americans as \u201cred.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, there is something slightly disparaging about the \u201cskins\u201d component of the word \u201credskins.\u201d \u201cSkins\u201d can connote images of animal skins cut away from the body by fur hunters. While there is absolutely no basis to the frequently (and irresponsibly) repeated claim that the term \u201cRedskins\u201d once referred to the hides of Native Americans which could be exchanged for a bounty, there is something a little unpleasant about the similarity between \u201ccoonskin,\u201d \u201cdeerskin\u201d and \u201credskin.\u201d<\/p>\n Also, in contemporary slang at least, \u201cskins\u201d has a number of negative connotations. The term refers to cigarette wrapping papers and, through an extension of image, it also refers to aimless teens that smoke, use drugs, and are sexually promiscuous. This secondary meaning may also give the word \u201credskin\u201d unpleasant associations in our own time.<\/p>\n So, while it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the meaning of \u201credskin\u201d moved from innocuous to offensive, there is little reason to doubt that the general meaning of the term has changed (although polling data suggests that Native Americans are divided as to whether the use of the name Redskins by the Washington team is offensive). Moreover, the question of whether a business should be required to change its long-standing name because the meaning of one of the component terms has changed is a complicated question.<\/p>\n (A growing sensitivity to the representation of African-Americans in popular culture may have led to the cancellation of the Amos \u2018n Andy television show, but Uncle Ben\u2019s Rice and Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix are still on the market and still using versions of their traditional symbols.)<\/p>\n However, notwithstanding the changing meaning of the word \u201credskin,\u201d there are other reasons to criticize the use of Native American imagery by George Preston Marshall\u2019s football team. The real issue is not the choice of an \u201coffensive\u201d team name; the real issue is one regarding the boundaries of the right to appropriate someone else\u2019s cultural property.<\/p>\n Before Marshall, teams that used Native-American team names rarely made much of an effort to exploit the Indian connection, unless the team was made up of Native American players. For Marshall, choosing a Native American name was only a start.<\/p>\n Even though the experiment with the war paint, the Indian players, the Indian coach (who, unbeknownst to Marshall, turned out not to be a real Native American) lasted only a couple of years, Marshall eventually realized that it wasn\u2019t necessary to have real Indians to capitalize on the Native American connection. He retained the Indian imagery and expanded it to include a marching band wearing Indian headdresses, cheerleaders decked out in Indian princess costumes, and a fight song that was originally written in pidgin English and set to what were supposedly Indian rhythms.<\/p>\n No sports team had ever before attempted to exploit the use of Indian imagery on such a scale, but, after Marshall\u2019s Redskins became popular, such features were widely imitated. Once he moved the team to Washington in 1937, the neo-Confederate Marshall further complicated the imagery by declaring the Redskins to be Dixie\u2019s team. (In Marshall\u2019s mind, the two groups, Indians and Confederates, were linked. His home town, Romney, West Virginia, is the location of an ancient burial mound that was turned into a Confederate cemetery during the Civil War.)<\/p>\n The real question regarding the Washington Redskins is whether or not non-Indian sports teams should have the right to exploit the cultural symbols of Native Americans. If they do not, then the Washington Redskins should become should change their name and imagery.<\/p>\n Of course, cultural property is notoriously difficult to define, and it not clear what the consequences would be were we to recognize even an informal proprietary on the parts of groups to their own cultural property. But that is the real issue involved in the Redskins controversy, not the meaning of the word \u201cRedskin.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The debate over the appropriateness of Native American team names rages on. Whatever the propriety of generic Native American team names like Indians, Chiefs, Braves, or Warriors, or tribal names like Utes, Chippewas, or Seminoles, there seems to be a widespread belief that the term \u201cRedskins\u201d is especially offensive and insulting to Native Americans. How […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public","category-sports-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28860,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21813\/revisions\/28860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}