Schram: Renaming Redskins a cause we can all support

Washington's problems seem not just humongous but beyond solutions -- from the economy to health reform to global warming, Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan. But occasionally a controversy is thrust before us where we all know the right thing to do.

Especially when it is about ending a vestige of racial prejudice from an era long past -- something so wrong that it would never be suggested, let alone selected, today.

So we don't need to wait for a Supreme Court ruling to compel the powers that be to do the right thing. Last month, a group of Native Americans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review their case in which they contended the nickname of the National Football League's team in the nation's capital is so odious that it should be denied its trademark status.

There can be no doubt that the nickname is about only one thing -- skin color. Hail to the Washington Redskins. They are the team we Washingtonians cheer on Sundays. But we also know, deep down, that nobody would have dared suggest that a team be named as a reference to any other skin color. No one ever would have suggested calling the capital city's team the Washington Whiteskins or Blackskins or Yellowskins or Palefaces or Darkies.

In 1933, when George Preston Marshall renamed his Boston Braves football team the "Redskins" (Boston's baseball team was also the Braves), it didn't sound bigoted to America's ears. But that was in an era when America laughed and clapped at minstrel shows featuring white entertainers in caricatured blackface. Life in the south was segregated; so were all major league sports in the north.

Prejudice wasn't beyond Marshall's reach. He was the last pro football owner to sign an African-American player -- and that came only after pressure from federal officials. As The Washington Post's excellent columnist Courtney Milloy noted, when someone asked Marshall if he was anti-Semitic, he reportedly replied: "Oh, no, I love Jews, especially when they're customers."

The Supreme Court has been asked to review the case of Suzan Harjo v. Pro-Football, which has been bouncing around the courts since 1992, after lower-court rulings that the plaintiffs waited too long to challenge the trademark, which has been used since 1967. Suzan Shown Harjo, is an advocate for Native American rights; she has been joined in the case by other activists who share her cause. They contend the nickname is so offensive that the statute of limitations should not apply.

Campaigns by Native American activists have successfully led some colleges to change their team nicknames and mascots. For example, St. John's University changed its nickname from the Redmen to the Red Storm. (Hmmm. Perhaps Redskins owner Dan Snyder may choose to follow a similar path and pick a similar sounding name that represents the Washington that Americans have come to know well: Hail the Washington Red Tape?)

When it comes to team nicknames and mascots such as Indians, Braves and Chiefs, it really isn't up to those of us who are not of Native American heritage to judge what offends those who are. Frankly, those names always struck me as respectful and honoring America's original inhabitants.

But while the Cleveland Indians name never struck me as offensive, their cartoonish, grinning "Chief Wahoo" adorning their baseball caps seems to be the most racially offensive emblem in sports. Can you imagine the outcry if a team wore cartoon sketches of Little Black Sambo or Elmer Fudd?

It's past time for us to get beyond that. In 2001, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission called for "an end to the use of Native American images and team names by non-Native schools." And added: "The use of American Indian mascots is not a trivial matter."

There is no need to wait to see if the Supreme Court will compel us to do the right thing.

(Martin Schram writes political analysis for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail him at martin.schram(at)gmail.com.)

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