Washington Redskins Renaming - Jul 7, 2020 - email by Randall F. More

July 7, 2020

ATTENTION: Mr. Dan Snyder

Washington Redskins owner

Change the "Redskins" portion of the organizations name... and very soon thereafter you will likely have to remove "Washington" from the name as the first President's commemorative statues are now being destroyed by anarchists.

Following is an editorial that I recently wrote to our local newspaper. 

ATT: Editor

I acknowledge at the outset that I have never walked in the shoes of a First Nations or native North American Indian as I am a 70 year old white Anglo-Saxon male.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to understand the concern pertaining to controversial names and traditions of the NFL.

For the Washington Redskins NFL team, as one example, shouldn't we acknowledge that the "Redskins" designation would not have been selected if it was derogatory or derisive with respect to either the Washington team or to First Nations? Most likely it is a reference to an attribute of courage, competitiveness, strength, offensiveness, defensiveness, maybe even warrior-like, or some other constructive and positive characteristic... but it is most certainly nothing derisive, then or now.

Do we change the name of the Minnesota Vikings NFL team because they insulted the Scandinavian Vikings of a thousand years ago? This would be preposterous. Again, the name selection is most likely rooted in one or more positive attributes of this early group of Scandinavians, not a derogatory reference. There would be no purpose in defining one's own team in a negative fashion.

Can we put this controversy to rest... and respect and honour the names consistent with their merits... whether it be the Washington Redskins or First Nations?

Yours truly 

Randall F. More, P. Eng.

FOLLOWING NOTE ADDED AFTER SENDING ORIGINAL EMAIL:

The first unchallenged use of the word “redskin” occurs in 1769 when a British lieutenant colonel translates a letter from an Indian chief promising safe passage if the officer visited his tribe in the Upper Mississippi Valley.

“I shall be pleased to have you come to speak to me yourself if you pity our women and our children; and, if any redskins do you harm, I shall be able to look out for you even at the peril of my life.” (Chief Mosquito said in his letter, according to a 2005 study by Ives Goddard, the Smithsonian Institution’s senior linguist emeritus.) (by Ian Shapira May 29, 2016)