In 2013, when I was a CNN Digital reporter, I spoke by phone with Suzan Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee writer and activist whose lifelong mission has been to fight for Native American rights. Part of her work was to remove the use of native people as mascots for sporting teams. The Washington Redskins, she told me, was the worst offender of them all.
She couldn’t even bring herself to saying the name. The R-word, she said, was the same as the N-word.
Fans of the Washington football team have defended its name as an honorific; that somehow, the word, redskins, pays tribute to the native people of America. But the Native Americans I know say the term is offensive and the Merriam-Webster dictionary advises the word “should be avoided.” Harjo told me nothing could be more derogatory than the R word.
“The Washington team — it’s the king of the mountain,” she said. “When this one goes, others will.”
That conversation took place more than seven years ago. I got a lot of responses to the story and a lot of hate on Twitter from Washington fans. I know many high schools and colleges that have changed their names but there was not much movement on the pro front. Until today.
With pressure mounting amid anti-racism protests, the Washington team announced today it is “retiring” the name. I read the story in the Washington Post and wondered what other teams might follow. The Cleveland Indians? The Atlanta Braves have already said the team would keep its name but consider shedding the tomahawk chop. I saw it done at Doak Campbell Stadium when I was a student at Florida State University — home of the Seminoles, even though few Seminole Indians go to college there – and later at Braves games. I remember sitting silently in my seat as everyone at Turner Field made the motions that Native Americans like Harjo say belittle their culture.
This morning, I remembered a story Harjo told me about her own childhood. One summer day when she was 6, she walked into a store in Reno, Oklahoma, for something cool to drink. But the storekeepers told her she had to leave.
“No black redskins in here,” they said.
In that moment, Harjo felt small and scared. Later in life, she grew angry. Enough to dedicate her time and energy to correcting some of the many wrongs Native Americans have suffered. They are wrongs that often don’t make it into the national discourse but I believe we ought to be reassessing American history not just in terms of slavery and its brutal legacy but also in terms of the genocide perpetrated against the people who inhabited these lands long before the enslavers and the enslaved.
Harjo predicted that other teams would drop offensive mascots once the Washington team did. That the removal of the R word would lead to bigger change. I hope she was right.