Sen. Harry Reid Calls on NFL to Rename Redskins
In the wake of the NBA’s announcement that the Los Angeles Clippers owner would be banned from the organization for life over racist remarks he made, many are wondering if the owner of the Washington Redskins will face a similar fate since his team goes by a name that carries a long history of “bigotry and racism.”
Nevada Senator Harry Reid released a statement on Wednesday praising the NBA’s ‘zero tolerance’ stance against racism in their league and called for the NFL to do the same.
“Commissioner Silver and NBA leadership have set the standard for how professional sports organizations should act in the face of racism,” Reid said in the statement. “I wonder, has the leadership of the National Football League taken notice of the NBA’s decisive action? How long will the NFL continue to do nothing as one of its teams bears a name that inflicts so much pain on Native Americans? […] For far too long the NFL has been sitting on its hands, doing nothing while an entire population of Americans has been denigrated. I say to Commissioner Roger Goodell, it is time to act. Remove this hateful term from your league’s vocabulary. Follow the NBA’s example and rid the league of bigotry and racism. Your fans will support it.”
Daniel Snyder, owner of Washington’s NFL team, has been told time and time again that the name of his football team and the imagery that goes along with it is racist.
After Silver’s press conference on Tuesday, the Oneida Indian Nation and the national Change the Mascot campaign it created, released the following statement:
“In banning Clippers owner Donald Sterling, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and other NBA team owners have taken a courageous stand against racism in professional sports, acknowledging that professional leagues cannot be a platform to promote bigotry,” said Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter. “In taking such appropriate disciplinary action, the NBA has shown leagues like the NFL that they have a moral responsibility to take disciplinary action against people like Dan Snyder, who also continues to proudly promote bigotry with the use of a dictionary-defined racial slur as his team’s name.”
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