Redskins become Commanders.

The Washington Football Team has a new name. 

"Redskins" is out.

Jack Mullen and Jennifer Angelo

In the 1960s and 1970s the term "Native American" had largely replaced "Indian" or "American Indian" as the respectful term to describe the indigenous people in the Americas. Then something happened. The words Indian and American Indian began coming back into greater use. A new cultural rule had emerged. The polite and respectful term to use for groups within our culture is the term the people in the groups prefer and use for themselves. It turns out that many Indians preferred Indian. 

That rule of courtesy has a Golden Rule feel to it. Do onto others as they would have done to themselves. If male homosexuals want to be called "gay," then "gay" it is. The word "Latinx" was invented by non-Hispanics out of good intentions to be inclusive and non-offensive, but its use is fading. The reason is simple. Hispanic Americans didn't prefer it or use it themselves.

Indians--Native Americans--didn't call themselves "redskins."

Jack Mullen was two years ahead of me at Medford High School. We thinned and picked pears in summer jobs together as youths. In our 20s we worked together as field representatives for a Democratic U.S. Representative. He and his wife recently moved from the Mission District in San Francisco to a home in Washington, D.C. Jack Mullen and his wife, Jennifer, are sports fans.

Jack played on teams wearing a "Medford Black Tornado" logo. Medford residents can cheer "Black Tornados" because we don't have tornados here. Tornados are a far-off peril, not a cause of local death and misery. No one is offended.

Guest Post by Jack Mullen

As a long-time friend of Peter, I am flattered when he occasionally asks, now that I live in Washington D.C., to give an inside the Beltway perspective of all things Washington.

Yes, we in Washington still worry about all things emanating up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. We worry about covid and non-maskers. But you know what really gets up in our grill these days? The embarrassing conduct of our once proud, but no longer called Washington Redskin football team.

1965: Catching a pass

Not that we expected to play in yesterday’s Super Bowl XLI in the obscenely opulent So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles. Although the football team remains rather dull, apparently there was not a dull moment inside the football team’s offices and facilities. Female office workers, as well as members of the rally squad, told Congress last week of the belittling experiences of constant sexual innuendos they had working under owner Dan Snyder’s umbrella, including advances from Mr. Snyder himself.

If a healthy dose of misogyny wasn’t enough, General Manager Bruce Allen was caught on tape yukking it up with Oakland Raiders coach John Gruden about African American players who had ‘big lips’.

Dan Snyder was in need of public relations help and decided, after a decade of relentless public pressure, to drop the name Redskins. Washingtonians, chuckled, then took to the interim name, ‘The Washington Football’ until a committee could come up with a new name. Before you knew it, fans were yelling “Go Football Team” as checkers at our local Safeway did every Sunday in the fall. “Football Team” became an endearing nickname as it stood out against bland names like Lions, Eagles, Cowboys, or any other nickname of other NFL teams. Ok, 49ers is pretty cool, but still.

Washington football fans new found energy quickly disappeared when, after 16 months, the committee decided only military names would befit a rough-tough football team. So, on February 2, the name Washington Commanders was unveiled with appropriate hoopla.

Now headline writers short on space, have to refer to the Commanders as ‘Commies’. Fans have taken to call fellow Commander fans in the new Commander jackets, ‘Comrade’. And what about the Native Americans who despised the nickname “Redskins”? The new name reminds them even more that it was the military the practically caused their extinction. Way to go, Dan!