Stufffed Shirts and Red Skins

Guess I don't have to worry about violating copyright...

A federal court has, subject to appeal, voided the Washington Redskins' trade marks on the premise that the team name is a pejorative towards American Indians.

This is a big problem, and a bad law. First, there is no plausible reason for such a law. No business owner is intentionally going to name his product with a pejorative. It is quite obviously bad for business to say your product is sh*t.

It goes without saying, then, that “Redskins” was not considered a pejorative when the Washington team was originally named, in 1933; otherwise the name would not have been chosen, because it would be suicidal. A quick check of the 1913 edition of Webster's confirms this: no hint that the term is pejorative. Now the team has invested hugely in making it an identifiable brand, the third-most valuable brand in the NFL. Bad enough if changing popular usage has twisted the term over time so that it has become an insult: then the management faces the difficult choice whether to jettison the name and lose all that investment, all that fan history and fan loyalty, or tough it out with a name that has become a liability through no fault of their own. But it is unconscionable if they are not even allowed that choice, but have the name taken from them by the government without compensation.

And has “redskin” even been used pejoratively by any significant section of the population? If so, I for one have not noticed it. Isn't the problem rather that American Indians have been portrayed in many books and movies in a relatively unflattering light, as the villains of the piece, prone to massacre and pillage, as, in a word, savages, and these movies and books happen to use the term “redskins”?

If so, this is remarkably bad news as well for the Minnesota Vikings; and simply equity requires that both team trade marks be voided at the same time.

But hold off a moment. There are other sports teams whose names genuinely are used by large portions of the population, right now, here, today, as insults. Their situation, therefore, ought to be even more clear-cut, and their rights should be cancelled and their property seized before anyone thinks of going after the poor Redskins.

I think, in the first place, of the Dallas Cowboys.

Most times, if you call someone a “cowboy,” you do not mean this as a compliment. When America joined World War Two, Hitler scoffed at their army as “cowboy soldiers.” In British English, a “cowboy” is a workman who has done a shoddy job. Cambridge simply defines “cowboy” as “dishonest person.”

And surely cowboys, though a small, vulnerable minority, are an identifiable group?

And then there are the New York Yankees. They certainly ought to have no right to their own name. In most of the world today, “Yankee” is an insult—think “Yankee, Go Home.” The Urban Dictionary defines it thus: “The word is a derogatory term used to describe Americans.” It is even an insult throughout most of the US South. Heck, arguably even in the US North. One need only cite the title of the famous musical: “Damn Yankees.” Does that sound pejorative, or doesn't it?

So why all this fuss directed only at the poor old Washington Redskins? Isn't this, plainly, discrimination against redskins?