The Washington Redskins asked their legions of fans to send a message Thursday to Harry Reid, who’s been on a campaign lately to shame the team and its owner into dropping its racially charged nickname. It did not go over well.
After the official Redskins Twitter account asked fans to to show the Democratic leader of the Senate their “#RedskinsPride and tell him what the team means to you,” several users instead lashed out at the offensive name.
@Redskins the team needs to changes its name already and get its fans out of this embarrassing quagmire. I’d like to talk football again.
— Newman, Ted (@deuce4922) May 29, 2014
@Redskins Change the name, dummies! /cc @SenatorReid @dcsportsbog
— BASED JEFF (@JeffInBK) May 29, 2014
@Redskins @SenatorReid I’ll be way more proud of my team if they do the right thing and Change The Name. @changeracism
— RichmondOpus (@RichmondOpus) May 29, 2014
Other users cringed at what immediately seemed like a clumsy P.R. move.
Oh no… RT @Redskins: Tweet @SenatorReid to show your #RedskinsPride and tell him what the team means to you.
— Marc Torrence (@marctorrence) May 29, 2014
@Redskins @SenatorReid This team has ZERO self-awareness.lol
— statsjeff (@statsjeff) May 29, 2014
Reid has been aggressive in his criticism of the team name for the last few months. In March, he mocked Redskins owner Daniel Snyder’s foundation aimed at reducing poverty on Indian reservations.
“Dan Snyder, he’s got a great new deal,” Reid told the Washington Post. “He’s going to throw a few blankets to the Indians and get a tax deduction for it. I can’t imagine why the man doesn’t realize that the name is going to change. It’s only a question of when it’s going to change. That’s the only question.”
Last week, 50 senators, including Reid, sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, calling on the league to “take action to remove the racial slur from one of its marquee franchises.”
I’m not really hip to the whole Twitter thing, but does this sort of stunt ever NOT end up being hijacked 100-to-1 by whatever the other side of the argument is?
I don’t tweet, but I do love how often PR firm attempts manipulate Twitter blow up in their clients’ faces. It’s like they don’t get that snark and 144 characters go together like bacon and tomato.
Look…this isn’t rocket science sports fans. The team is the RED Skins.
Just take that a step further and imagine your favorite team was:
The Yellow Skins
or
The Black Skins
or
The Brown Skins
or
The Spics, Wops, (fill in your favorite racial epithet.)
Are you defending this because you truly believe in it, or because you think this is simply a “liberal” stunt and you’ll defend anything if that is the case…regardless of how stupid your stance is?
Change the name…it is indefensible and an embarrassment…and get on with life.
Redskins is bad but they are not alone in teams that need to change their names. I’m looking at you…
Utah Jazz…
Los Angeles Lakers…
Minnesota Wild…
Re: Hall of Worthies
"I told one of my colleagues that it might be interesting to assemble the list of all these guys. He suggested Ben Carson, the famed neurosurgeon turned Republican crazy guy, as another example. But I’m sort of on the fence on whether he fits the category. "
But Josh…dear dear Josh…you missed it. Ben Carson DOES hate some “historically or currently discriminated against group”: HIS OWN.
The phenomenon of people like him, or Black Scalia, is that they fervently do not want to be associated with their own people, want to be seen as having risen and separated to the top like the crème they believe so vehemently that they are. They despise their own people and what they perceive association with them does to their own “unique specialness.” They despise the idea that things like affirmative action may have helped them, not their own rugged individualism and shining grandeur. When they talk about things like the “Democrat plantation” they are broadcasting their narcissistic belief that they are better that their racial brethren, that they have “escaped” while the rest “wallow,” helpless, feckless and lost. Their espousal of conservatism and its policies that are so damaging to their own communities are their way of distancing themselves and setting themselves apart, of trying to give almost physio-ideological form to their narcissistic delusions of grandeur. Ben Carson and his ilk fit right in with the rest of the Hall of Worthies, even based on that common core of having a hatred or disdain for a historically discriminated against group. It just happens to be they belong to group…and desperately desperately don’t want to.