Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, slamed the NFL and Washington Redskins owner, Daniel Snyder for refusing to change the name of the Redskins after the NBA took such swift action against Clippers owner, Donald Sterling.
“Commissioner Silver and the NBA leadership have set the standard for how professional sports organization should act in the face of racism,” Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on the Senate floor. “How long will the NFL continue to do nothing, zero, as one of its team bears the name that inflicts so much pain for Native Americans?”
“It is untoward of Daniel Snyder to try to hide behind tradition. Tradition? That’s what he says in refusing to change the name of the team,” Reid said. “Tradition? What tradition? A tradition of racism is all that name leaves in its wake. Mr. Snyder knows that in sports the only tradition that matters is winning, so I urge Daniel Snyder to do what’s morally right and remove this degrading term from the league by changing his team’s name.”
“Since Snyder fails to show any leadership, the National Football League should take an assist from the NBA and pick up the slack. It would be a slam dunk,” he added. “For far too long, the NFL has been sitting on its hands doing nothing while an entire population of Americans has been denigrated.”
“Remove this hateful term from your league’s vocabulary. Follow the NBA’s example and rid the league of bigotry and racism. The fans will support it,” he said.
That's smart politicking on Reid's part. Good for him and keep it up.
Meanwhile, Digby finds another Redskins story, but it's not related to the NFL:
In Bucks County, Pa., school board overrides student newspaper's ban on use of 'Redskins'
... A school board committee in Pennsylvania passed a policy this week that prohibits a school newspaper from banning the word from its pages, according to an article that appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times.
In October, the staff for the school paper, the Playwickian, voted to ban the word, which describes the school's teams and mascot. But on Tuesday night, a Neshaminy school board committee decided the newspaper does not have that right, with one board member citing the First Amendment rights of students who want to contribute to the publication. "If my son wants to write something proud about being a Redskin football player, the students on that paper, under the law, have no right to tell him he has to take the word 'Redskin' out of there," school board member Steve Pirritano said, according to the Courier Times....
The Playwickian's editor, Gillian McGoldrick, told the Courier Times that the newspaper's staff voted 14 to 7 to ban the word after conversations and research on the subject....
Yes, if your son wants to be a bigot he does have the right to say so out in the real world. However, right wingers have gone all the way to the Supreme Court to ensure that school kids do not have unfettered free speech. In fact, the court explicitly ruled back in 1988 that schools have the right to censor their newspapers. These right wing parents don't have a problem with any of that until somebody decides that it's wrong to use racial epithets.
I like free speech and I frankly think kids should have the right to it as well. But the fact that any parent thinks this kind of bigotry is worth defending makes them a real jackass regardless. And sadly, they're probably raising more jackasses to take up the jackass banner for the next generation. The good news is that there will be fewer of them.
