Congress members Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla) plan on sending a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, threatening him to publicly support the name change for the Washington Redskins.
Cantwell notified newspapers that the Indian Affairs Committee will examine the NFL’s tax-exempt status in order to pressure them.
“The National Football League can no longer ignore this and perpetuate the use of this name as anything but what it is: a racial slur,” the letter stated.
“You’re getting a tax break for educational purposes, but you’re still embracing a name that people see as a slur and encouraging it,” Cantwell told The New York Times.
The letter went on to tell the NFL that they are on the “wrong side of history” and that the NFL should “take a formal position in support of a name change.” It included three letter excerpts from fans of Native American descent, some supported the Redskins’ name change and some did not find it offensive.
Goodell has declined to take a formal stance on the debate in the past. Before the Super Bowl, he told reporters, “I’ve been spending the last year talking to many of the leaders in the Native American communities. We are trying to make sure we understand the issues. Let me remind you: This is the name of a football team, a football team that’s had that name for 80 years and has presented the name in a way that it has honored Native Americans.”
The lawmakers’ letter rebutted Goodell’s statement, calling the name “an insult to Native Americans.”
Redskins owner Dan Snyder has been adamant that he won’t change the name. But he has received steady pressure, and protests, over the past year. In May, 10 members of Congress sent letters to Snyder, Goodell, the 31 other owners and Redskins sponsor FedEx, urging the franchise to change the name. Cole was part of that group as well.
That group introduced a bill last March that would “cancel the federal registrations of trademarks using the word redskin in reference to Native Americans.”
Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie said in a statement, “With all the important issues Congress has to deal with such as a war in Afghanistan to deficits to health care, don’t they have more important issues to worry about than a football team’s name? And given the fact that the name of Oklahoma means ‘Red People’ in Choctaw, this request is a little ironic.”
[ESPN]