Judge Sides With Redskins in Team Name Suit

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by memphisskin

Won't go into Vikings, but they are no longer around. American Indians still do, well at least 3 million of them do.

There are plenty of people with Nordic ancestry around, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and many other. I've never heard one complaint of being offended by the Viking name. Plenty of Irish around, and the "Fighting Irish" has often been mentioned as a veiled reference to the "drunk Irishman" sterotype. No Irish are compaining about ND. Those were just a couple that came to mind quickly. There are other many other team names/mascots people could find offensive.

I saw that George Preston Marshall named the team after his coach. So in 1933, George Marshall was so enamored with his American Indian coach that he nicknamed his team the Redskins to celebrate the coaches ancestry? In 1933? In Boston in 1933? And that's a fact?

Actually some more background so you don't think I'm "pissing in your water". The Boston Braves came from the old Duluth Eskimos, who were bankrupt (I guess that team name was offensive too). Marshall wanted to distinguish his team from the Boston Braves baseball team, but keep with the same Indian theme. This was also an honor to his new coach William "Lone Star" Dietz, a full blooded Indian who played with Jim Thorpe at Carlisle. The team moved from Braves Field to Fenway Park and changed the name to Redskins.

For the record, my wife has Indian ancestry in her background and has no problem with the team name, should we include her in the survey too?