The organization based its name on the racist slur “Redskins” and likewise abandoned the brand that was closely related to this name: the profile of an Indian with long hair and two feathers.
Well, a white Republican US Senator from Montana revives the controversy by introducing a bill to finance the Revitalization of the dilapidated RFK Stadium for the Commanders, who played miles away in Maryland. Senator Steve Daines says he’ll block the laws until the NFL and the Commanders honor the previous logo in some form.
Daines declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press to elucidate his position or reply to criticism from indigenous peoples who attribute such efforts to racism.
The complicated history of Logo
The original logo was designed by a member of the Blackfeet Nation within the state of Montana. Tribal members be happy with it and of the legacy of the person who helped shape it within the early Seventies – Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, former tribal chairman of the Blackfeet Nation and former president of the National Congress of the American Indian, the oldest advocacy group for Native Americans and Alaska Natives within the country.
Wetzel’s family says Daines and Wetzel’s son Donwho died last yr on the age of 74, formed a friendship that will give the senator latest momentum in his fight for the brand.
The issue of Indian land is often a bipartisan issue in Congress.
Daines serves on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and has worked with Democratic colleagues on access to scrub water for tribal communities. He supported the passage of a Truth and Healing Commission that may examine the history of Indian boarding schoolsa bill by Senator Elizabeth Warrena Democrat from Massachusetts.
Daines also used this policy area to take swipes on the Biden administration and was one in every of the fiercest opponents of the nomination of Deb Haaland, the primary Native American to go the Department of the Interior.
He accused her of being hostile to the energy and natural resources industries and said she would use her appointment to “negatively impact the way of life in Montana.” In May blocked the nomination the girl in search of to grow to be the primary Native American federal district judge in Montana. Daines said the Biden administration didn’t seek the advice of together with his office on the nomination, a claim the White House denies.
Painful symbolism?
Daines said in a prepared statement that he would delay the stadium laws until representatives of the Washington Commanders and the NFL show that they’re working with the Wetzel family and Blackfeet Nation leaders to seek out a strategy to “honor the history of the logo and the heritage of our tribal nations and re-establish the organization as an advocate for Indian Country.”
For many indigenous peoples, the team’s original name and logo represent an unpleasant history of racial discrimination and violence, in addition to modern struggles over the moral representation of Native Americans in popular culture. The National Congress of the American Indian, the organization once led by Walter Wetzel, has fought to abolish such mascots since 1968. Numerous psychological studies have shown the harmful effects that Native American mascots have on children.
A divided family
The mascot of the football team founded in Boston in 1932 was a Native American. However, after moving to Washington DC in 1937, the brand was modified first to a spear and later to an “R” decorated with two feathers.
Walter Wetzel had worked for the Department of Labor to handle housing and employment inequalities in Indian Country. He worked closely with President John F. Kennedy and was friends with him and Robert Kennedy. Wetzel worked with the football team to revamp its logo. He felt that if the team was going to have a Native American-themed mascot, it should no less than be a representative image, said his grandson Ryan Wetzel.
Walter Wetzel proposed a profile of a former Blackfeet chief, John Two Guns White Calf. An image of this image can be used from the 1972 season until its retirement in 2020.
“I understand the controversy around the name, I get it,” said Ryan Wetzel. “I come from a family that is divided over the name. But how can we keep the logo and use it going forward?”
Ryan Wetzel said his father, Don, needed to have a leg amputated in his final years, but he still showed up frequently on Capitol Hill to garner support for preserving the brand, and Daines took up the cause. Daines reached out to Ryan Wetzel after his father’s death last yr to see if he could help one way or the other revive the hassle to revive the brand.
A “dog whistle”?
A spokesman for Daines said discussions with the Washington Commanders a couple of strategy to honor the Wetzel family are ongoing and productive. In his testimony during a May committee hearing on the RFK Stadium bill, Daines suggested the brand might be revived to sell merchandise and a portion of the profits might be used for causes akin to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
But Native American advocates and researchers say using the old logo is an inappropriate and harmful strategy to achieve justice and equality for Indigenous peoples. No matter how the image was chosen, it can’t be separated from the racist slur it once promoted, said Crystal Echo Hawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation and founder and CEO of IllumiNative, a nonprofit that advocates for greater visibility of Native Americans. She called the previous logo a “dog whistle” for the team’s former name.
“The science underscores the damaging impact of these images on indigenous peoples,” said Dr. Stephanie Fryberg, a professor of psychology on the University of Michigan and one in every of the country’s leading experts on the topic.
Fryberg, a member of the Tulalip Tribe in Washington state, said the usage of these mascots results in increased rates of depression, self-harm, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts, especially amongst children.
“The continued use of these racist images prevents Native Americans from existing and being valued in today’s societal context,” she said.
What did the Blackfeet Nation get?
In Montana, some Blackfeet Nation council members wonder why so little of the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by the football team featuring the White Calf image, designed by a former Blackfeet Nation chairman, never reached the Blackfeet people.
Decades ago, the football team donated just a few vans to move Blackfeet elders to a close-by VA facility, said Everett Armstrong, councilman for the Blackfeet Nation, but he was unaware of some other resources or revenue shared with the tribe. A spokesman for the Washington Commanders couldn’t provide other examples but said the team was in talks with the Wetzel family.
There are strong feelings concerning the logo and its legacy on the reservation, Armstrong said. But one group feels completely excluded from the discussion: the descendants of White Calf.
They weren’t consulted concerning the use of his image within the Seventies and have never been asked about it since, said Armstrong, himself a descendant of White Calf.
“They want a seat at the table,” he said.
