By Ken Reed
I’ve written several times in the past that the Redskins nickname is dead in Washington. It’s not a question of if, but when.
But thanks to Redskins’ owner Dan Snyder, that time could come sooner than later.
As Colin McGowan wrote in a recent SportsOnEarth column, “It’s genuinely astounding that every damn time the Redskins try to sway public opinion on this issue, they embarrass themselves further. They could not be worse at this.”
Washington’s NFL franchise recently launched a #RedskinsPride campaign, asking fans to let Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — an outspoken opponent of the Redskins nickname — know how much they support the Redskins nickname. The team tweeted: “Tweet @SenatorReid to show your #RedskinsPride and tell him what the team means to you.” The team also emailed fans asking them to contact Sen. Reid.
As McGowan tells it:
“the Washington Redskins recently did something spectacularly dumb, so let’s talk about that. Two weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter signed by half the U.S. Senate to the NFL, urging its leadership to put pressure on Dan Snyder to change his franchise’s racist nickname. Someone in Snyder’s stable of demonstrably overpaid flacks thought it would be a good idea to counter that letter with a hashtag campaign, which would allow Washington fans to — the logic gets fuzzy here — publicly express their support for a slur.”
One thing’s for sure: Snyder’s bonehead PR strategy is speeding up the process that will ultimately result in the demise of a racist nickname.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
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