Justice for Native Americans

By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

There was a time when Black people were bombarded with offensive names that others knew were offensive, but use of the words continued. There’re some who still use those names even when talking about the President of the United States! I viewed the Super Bowl ad that was intended to show that not all Indians think the word “Redskins” is offensive. I was reminded how racists always find a Black person who’ll dispute the offensiveness of some of the terms used against us. That doesn’t change how the vast majority of us see it.

All of our lives we’ve had to deal with racism against ourselves; but the problem is much bigger than racism against Black people. A case in point is the racism in sports and media regarding not only us, but against our Native American brothers and sisters.

The late Solomon Burke had a song called “None of Us Are Free Until All of Us Are Free”— a gentle reminder that racism hurts all of us and that we’re so much stronger when we work together to end it. For that reason, I travelled to Minnesota when the Washington football team played the Minnesota Vikings. I learned that Native women were playing a lead role in the protest to change the name of the Redskins. I went out of a need to stand with these women, and their families, in their plea for justice. I felt that being there was a way to share the pain of injustice and to say there are Black people who understand and want to be a part of making the change needed to bring about justice not just for ourselves, but for all people.

Black people and Native Americans have a common past of separation from our lands, distortion of our histories and of having to fight a continuing battle against being caricatured into insignificance. Black and Native elders must work to clarify the truth of our histories so that slavery and the brutalities inflicted upon our Native brothers and sisters and us are not the sole legacies left for us to know. The gory, bloodying of the head of butchered Native Americans and their bloody scalps, called “redskins,” shouldn’t be used as a source of celebration for a modern sports team.

A game where Minnesota Vikings play Washington seemed to be the perfect time to support the name change to one that is just and decent. Dan Snyder may not think the name is offensive, but the history of the name and the brutality it represents are indisputable. Now that we know the depth of the offense, we must accept the name change as the correct course of action—because when we know better, we’re charged with doing better.

The insult and denigration are clear! Despite complaints about removing the name from the team, it’s time to change the name! We, Black Americans, should be helping our Native brothers and sisters in leading the charge. The lynching of Black people and extermination of Native people are shameful parts of America’s past history and should not be perpetuated by celebration.

Many Black people have differing amounts of Indian blood. My mother has Choctaw and Cherokee blood—tribes that were forcefully removed from the Deep South where I grew up. That means I have ancestors twice removed from their places of birth, so I take any insults of Indians personally just as I do denigration of my Black ancestry.

No team’s mascot should be offensive, but a team based in our nation’s capital should celebrate our unique diversity instead of our brutal past. Let’s not give up the fight until we get a respectful name for our football team in Washington, DC.

This article originally published in the November 10, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.