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.

Read the CNN story

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.” Continue reading “It’s about time we retire the ‘R word’”