The big yawn

Tomorrow, the Washington Football Team will announce its new name. The team will do so on NBC’s Today Show.

Apparently, those in charge of the team and the network think there’s significant national interest in what the former Redskins will call themselves. I doubt there is.

Most fans of the team are interested in the new name, but I’m not among them. I don’t care.

Here are my two predictions on the subject: (1) most fans of the team will dislike the new name and (2) most of them will get used it and stop hating.

Revealing the new name raises old questions about whether the name should have been changed in the first place. I have mixed feelings.

I never loved “Redskins.” To me, it seems demeaning towards Native Americans. But then, I’m not of that ethnicity.

When the Washington Post conducted a survey of Native Americans, it found that only a very small percentage of them, about 10 percent, had a problem with the name. The results were about as one-sided as I’ve seen in a survey.

Even now, after all the agitation, some high schools with predominantly Native American populations continue to call their teams the Redskins.

Thus, it looks like only activists and a few whiners had a problem with the Washington Redskins. They should not call the shots.

Nor would they have, but for the killing of George Floyd. Reinforced by the Post’s poll, the team showed no sign of abandoning their name until then.

It makes no sense that a thug policeman’s unconscionable aggression towards a black criminal caused a football team to droop the name Redskins. What has one to do with other? Yet, it did cause the name change. Pressure from woke corporations made it happen. You know, the racial reckoning and all that.

Now, the racial reckoning is facing a reckoning. However, it’s too late to revisit the name change. The team intends to monetize it for all it’s worth, and more.

I’m okay with that. Like I said, I never liked the name. However, it’s unfortunate that it was changed under pressure from activists and corporations, rather than in response to genuine unhappiness by Native Americans of which there was hardly any.

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