The Washington Post’s editorial board announced Friday that it will no longer use the word Redskins to refer to the Washington, D.C., football team.
Other sections of the paper will continue to use the team’s poorly chosen name. The ed board, though, is not alone in making the switch: Slate and the Washington City Paper already use workarounds when referring to the NFL franchise.
The Redskins have been under a lot of pressure to change their team name, which is widely considered a slur toward Native Americans. The U.S. patent office even axed its recognition of the “disparaging” trademark. But Tony Wyllie, the team’s senior communications VP, has just one complaint about the Post’s decision:
“The editorial board has been opposed to the Washington Redskins name for more than 30 years,” he said. “We just wish they would have had taken us up on our offer to visit several reservations to see how much Native Americans embrace and value the name and use it as their own logo and mascots across this country.”
No word on whether those Native-Americans are any more real than the last “chief” the Redskins trotted out.
