The controversy around the word redskin is especially interesting for its unique place in the modern language and culture. While the modern dictionary entries for redskin and the lack of news headlines (either positive or negative) using redskin to label a Native American serve as evidence that a general consensus has been reached that the word is offensive, a major American professional football team uses the word as its name. The offensive nature of this is best understood when an analogy is presented. Unlike other Native American names for teams (Indians, Chiefs, Blackhawks, Braves, etc.), redskin has actually been classified as a disparaging ethnic slur. Just like the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo is to Native American mascots, the name Redskins is to Native American team names; that is, each is generally viewed as the most unacceptable and disparaging of their respective groups. As such, one only needs to replace “Redskins” with any other ethnic or racial slur that they know to form an analogous situation in their mind.
The fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary (2000) defines “redskin” as offensive slang, “a disparaging term for a Native American,” but Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1998) only calls it a “common appellation for a North American Indian.” While there may still be some disagreement among modern dictionaries as to the offensiveness of the word, a general consensus seems to have been reached among most of the media, and much of society, that the word is negative. Considering that much of the media has labeled the word offensive, it is rarely ever used in newspaper or other headlines, and all of the individual cases where groups have expressed their negative opinion of the word, one might begin to wonder; if the Washington Redskins were not called such, would the word still be used at all today? While certainly it would remain in history, would the word ever really be used at such a frequency and popularity as it is today? It seems illogical to think so. A word that so many have expressed a negative opinion of would seem destined for labels of antiquity and archaic nature if not for a battalion of major corporations who are able to make money off of it. Yet, despite all the reasons why redskin should be an archaic term, it still survives and makes money to this day, existing as a unique, and controversial, entry in the modern American lexicon.
Well said!
