Hillary Clinton Urges Redskins to Change Names

Hillary Clinton has joined most of the U.S. Democrats in denouncing the name of the Washington Redskins, the National Football League (NFL) team based in Washington, D.C.

In an interview with Jorge Ramos, a journalist for Fusion, Clinton responded to a question about the name as a racial slur saying “I think it’s insensitive and I think that there’s no reason for it to continue as the name of a team in our nation’s capital,” the former secretary of state and likely presidential candidate replied. “I would love to see the owners think hard about what they could…”

Earlier this year, 50 senators sent a letter to the commisioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, strongly suggesting a name change.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s the term “redskin” transformed from a self-identifying word for Native Americans, to a derogatory word used by white Americans for Native peoples in public culture, portraying Native peoples as primitive, child-like and war-mongering. In the late 1930s the sports team fight song, “Hail to the Redskins” included the lyrics, "Scalp 'em, swamp 'em — we will take 'em big score / Read 'em, weep 'em, touchdown! — we want heap more!"

"Since 1971, nearly two-thirds of professional and amateur athletic teams bearing Native American iconography have made a change," Ian Crouch wrote in the New Yorker.

In September 2013, the Oneida Indian Nation began a radio ad campaign pushing the Washington NFL team to change its name and logo. "We do not deserve to be called redskins," an Oneida says in the ad. "We deserve to be treated as what we are — Americans."

The team's trademark registration was canceled in June by a federal board which stated that the team's name was “disparaging to Native Americans.” The cancellation of the trademark will make it more difficult for the team to claim in court that the use of the name is exclusive to the NFL team.