On July 8, a U.S. District Court ruled that the trademarks claimed by the Washington “Redskins” of the National Football League are voided of federal protection for violating the Lanham Act, which bars the trademark of disparaging terms. The plaintiffs were led by Amanda Blackhorse, a Diné woman from the Navajo Nation in Arizona.
In a predictably right-wing strategy, the team had previously sued the Blackhorse plaintiffs and the federal government, claiming that the Lanham Act violates its free-speech rights.
Among those campaigning for an end to racist mascots—“Arabs” and “Sheikhs” are less common, but no less disgusting—it is believed that Washington represents the largest target of all: If the “Redskins” fall, so will the rest, among them the Cleveland “Indians,” Chicago “Blackhawks” and Kansas City “Chiefs.”
The ruling will not take effect until the appeals process is exhausted, and, disturbingly if not unsurprisingly, the team has vowed to fight to the bitter end to protect its right to use a commonly understood racial slur as its name. Even then, despite not having a protected trademark, they may continue to use the name at will in official merchandise and publications, and require that the NFL do so as well. Their only potential loss is to opportunistic retailers who are under no obligation to seek licensure or pay royalties.
The struggle against the “Redskins” and other teams, professional and amateur, that use racist slurs and caricatures for nicknames and mascots goes back decades, with the first strong grassroots struggle taking hold in the 1960s.
All told, there are more than 2,100 professional and amateur teams currently using Native-derived nicknames and mascots. Not all use a slur—“Apaches,” “Aztecs” and “Utes” prominent among them—but many do—“Redskins” and “Savages” total nearly 100. All instances employ a caricaturization of Native Americans as ferocious, primitive and warlike.
Honor and tradition?
Apologists for the names tend to fall back on arguments of “honor” and “tradition,” but what honor is there in racism and in dictionary-defined racial slurs? What tradition but genocide, rape and theft? This while Native communities, forcibly removed from their lands, neglected and economically depressed, struggle with addiction, alcoholism, unemployment and violent crime caused by rampant poverty. Psychological studies clinically demonstrate the trauma these mascots cause to Native children, the result resembling a person who has been repeatedly bullied.
Washington’s trademarks were challenged in court by a group of plaintiffs led by Suzan Harjo in 1992. In that case, the judges found in favor of the Native plaintiffs, but their case ultimately lost on the technicality that too much time has passed between their passage into adulthood and when they filed. The group of plaintiffs led by Blackhorse were specifically chosen to eliminate that technicality.
That people must rely on a convoluted legal system simply to avoid having a racial slur thrown at them on autumn Sundays speaks to the nature of the capitalist state and its unquestioned loyalty to the wealthiest and most powerful forces in society. The NFL is technically a non-profit, but Washington is among its franchises with an estimated worth greater than $1 billion, and owner Daniel Snyder was already astronomically wealthy when he purchased the team in 1999. True to form, he and his franchise will use their almost unlimited resources to keep this case tied up in court for as long as possible.
Nonetheless, the writing is on the wall, and the slow elimination of Native mascots continues to win. As was the case with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Obergefell case for LGBTQ marriage equality, an organized mass movement forced the ruling class’s state apparatus to concede.
