With the new National Football League season poised to kick off in early September, the Washington, D.C., franchise went to federal court Aug. 14 in an attempt to stem the hemorrhage of bad publicity and legal calamities the team encountered over the summer as it holds onto its racist nickname and logo which have been found to be offensive to Native Americans.
The team ownership and some of its fans insist they are “honoring” the bravery of Native Americans by imitating tribal dress and customs which for the most part they don’t understand. But C. Richard King, co-editor of Encyclopedia of Native Americans in Sports and professor of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at WSU, says those who believe that the name is an “honor” are simply holding onto a “sincere fiction.”