Redskins: A Simple Solution

Recently there have been some stirrings of controversy—regarding ethnic sensibilities—when it comes to the name Washington Redskins. 

The first part, "Washington", is apparently OKAY since the nation’s capital city was named for the Revolutionary War Hero AND First President of the United States.  So where’s the problem?  With “Redskins” of course!  

The question arises: does this “old-fashioned term” convey a negative stereotype about Native Americans?  There are public calls for the team owner to change the name for that very reason but I believe there is a better solution.  Instead of changing this team’s name we should consider adding the word “skins” to describe other groups.  

Let me indicate how this might look in practice.

George Washington—the patron saint of the District of Columbia and hence the etymological driving force behind the team’s name--was Caucasian, don’t you see?  So instead of names like “Redskins” being perceived as an insult, we start using the color of skin for everyone else.

  

George Washington becomes identified as a White-Skin.  That will give us White-Skins, Black-Skins, and Yellow-Skins for starters.  This would equalize the playing field and is far easier than renaming a team and ruining all that merchandise. 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes known as that great Black-Skin leader and Amy Tan as that great Yellow-Skin author.  Sure, it might sting a little at first but I know my countrymen can get used to anything if they try!    

I do not see how anyone could object to such a simple yet elegant system of correctly identifying people by color.  We no longer would have to spell out Caucasian, Negro, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American and all them other hyphenated people; we just say White-skin, Black-skin, Yellow-skin, and Brown-skin.  It’s easy, fast, and accurate. 

Now some of you may object and say wait a minute: what about mixed marriages and the children?  No problem!  You just add the right number of colors. You get White-Black-Skin for someone whose parents are both white and black.  

Another example is Yellow-White-Skin which means kids who are Asian and White.  You see how simple it is! 

I admit there are some people who have more than two lines of racial ancestry but this new system is so excellent it can easily expand to include them, too!  For a person of very mixed-up ancestry--three or more races--we can say White-Black-Yellow-Skin to indicate parents (and grandparents’) diverse origins.  

We could even create shorter terms--such as Hybrid-Skin or maybe Mestizo-Skin to deal with multiple ethnicities--although I’m not sure the general public is ready for a foray into such advanced thinking.   

The length of the name is a concern, granted, if we had to spell out all these terms.  By introducing abbreviations we overcome this picky objection.  White-Black-skin becomes simply W-B Skin for President Obama.  That way it’s not a secret who is a Hybrid Mestizo and who is not an H-M but a PS Pure-Skin.

One problem remains: what color should be used for Hispanics, also known previously as Latinos and before that as Mexican-Americans and before that as “dirty greasers”.  America racial insults are nothing if not creative.  

If we try “Brown” we run into the “B” problem since we already have B for “Black” and if we use “Red” we run into the “R” problem since we already have R for “Red”.    

The solution turns out to be as simple as it is brilliant!  

Doubling up letters solves it easily.  We use “BL” for “Black” and “BR” for “Brown”.  Get it?  Even though some BL Black people are actually BR Brown in skin tone we shall consider them BL Black if their ancestors came from Africa.

That leaves us free to use BR Brown for Hispanics even though many Hispanic-Americans are really a mix of R Redskins and W Whites and sometimes even BL Black. 

Even with abbreviations, their story requires too many letters like H-M or BR-R-W-BL so we must abbreviate the abbreviations and shorten this racial multiplicity to simply BR Brown and we’re done.  If BR Brown marries BL, R, W, or Y then we combine letters accordingly.        

If we have to, we can use “R-BL-BR” for very dark-skinned Hispanic Mestizos with triple ancestry: that should take care of it right smartly.

  

I am tempted to suggest “H” for Hispanic instead of BR but that runs into a conflict since “H” is already being considered for “Hybrid”.  I suppose we could use “HI” for Hispanic and “HY” for Hybrid to distinguish them: that might work! (except people in Hawaii may wonder if "HI" means the person was born in Hawaii—aloha!)   

I think this new system will make everybody happy.  It totally defuses the looming crisis over the accursed racial insult in the name “Red-Skins” because now fans can keep liking that name and not feel awful about it . . . because they know that in the stands there are plenty of White-Skins, Black-Skins, Yellow-Skins, and Hybrid-Skins, too: a whole alphabet of fans!!    

Everybody’s a “Skin”--nobody loses and everybody wins! 

Sure, I get it, if the team were called the Washington N-Word (“Negro-Skins”) the outcry would be huge but that’s only because there are maybe 40 or 50 million Black-Skins and only about . . . well I don’t know how many Redskins are left but it can’t be very many. 

If ignoring Native Redskins’ feelings is too cruel, I offer my original solution: let’s use skin color designations for everyone to make things equal!  

Surely every American, from President Obama down to the most ordinary citizen, would be cool with this solution.  Who could object?  Each American is being treated exactly the same with letters-for-colors and in the same fair manner as everyone else. 

This will work if we only give it a chance!    

One last objection to this name change plan might be: what happened to the notion of American in which we recognize that America is a nation of diversity and it is this very diversity which gives us our strength?

·         That we should spend less time on identifying people by race and color and more time appreciating those fundamental strengths of human character found among all peoples across the entire rainbow spectrum of skin hues? 

·         That we should work together to nurture those bedrock principles of democratic thought that gave birth to our nation and which is the secret of our true greatness? 

·         That we should continue to advance those wondrous ideas of color-blind constitutional equal fairness so that we may come together as one people?

·         That we should encourage everyone to think of themselves as human beings with fundamental human rights belonging to the same family of mankind?

·         That, whatever other reasons we may have for pride in enjoying our distinctive cultural heritage, we should acknowledge that our ethnic group shares with other peoples of this world similar traits of character and moral vigor?

If we care about one, we care about all.  If our Native American Brothers and Sisters feel the name “Washington Redskins” is a derisive insult that gives them pain, this by itself should be enough to give us serious pause.  

In the words of the great Sioux people: “Mitakuye oyasin--We are all related!”

    

We thinking, feeling, caring Americans alive today are far more aware of the great spiritual wisdom of Native Americans than any earlier generation preceding us.  

We are light years ahead of that first wave of insatiable land-grabbing, culture-destroying European-American colonizers with their incessant and excessive displays of murderous intolerance and unabashed bigotry.  It was they who invented derogatory terms like “Redskins” and “Savages” to cover up their own crimes and shame. 

We today are in a position to open our minds, our eyes, our ears, and our hearts in a way that those earlier generations could not conceive.

Are we to remain sensitive only to our own needs and ignore those of others?

Americans can and must set the highest standards of ethical compassion for all peoples if they wish to maintain fidelity to America's founding principles:

the very principles which allow our nation to serve as a beacon light of hope and liberty to all the world’s peoples--including our own Native Americans!    

Prof. Rosenberg