SPORT of Non-thinking

To all my Washington Football fans, according to history, here is a description of the term 'Redskin' 

"Many claim the term is a particularly egregious racial epithet that represents a bloody era in American history in which Indigenous Americans were hunted, killed, and forcibly removed from their lands by European settlers. The claim often centers around a proclamation against Penobscot Indians in 1755 issued by King George II of Great Britain, known commonly as the Phips Proclamation. 

The proclamation orders, “His Majesty’s subjects to Embrace all opportunities of pursuing, captivating, killing and Destroying all and every of the aforesaid Indians.” The colonial government paid 50 pounds for scalps of males over 12 years, 25 pounds for scalps of women over 12, and 20 pounds for scalps of boys and girls under 12. Twenty-five British pounds sterling in 1755, worth around $9,000 today —a small fortune in those days when an English teacher earned 60 pounds a year. 

However, since the proclamation itself does not use the word redskin, citing it as the origin of "redskin = scalp" has also been called "revisionist history". Explain to me why do you cheer for a team that uses a derogatory term. (Please don't use the answer because I was born in DC). What are you doing to show the Native American people that you care? Are you willing to make a stand or simply go along with the demeaning and degradation of a culture. Understand this - I don't dislike the players, it's the name and symbolism that I object to. - Dr. Sinclar Grey III 9.11.13

Jada Fire bound on sofa

I've thought a great deal about this subject as an Indian and as an African. Today reading this post I was struck again by language and the tenor of the language. The short answer is cruel. The longer answer requires thought, and a historical perspective.


In the Washington DC area Blacks, for the most part, are submissive to the dictates of Southern White sensibilities, and their devotion to the football team reflects how deeply embedded is the nigger-mentality of slave to master. It is a deep thing, but consistent in the culture of the city. It is easy to point out. I have and I can, but what is the point? Sports fever is devoid of reasonable commitment to high ideals, but filled with facts and statistics and hysteria and fun. Black and White fans have their football team and schools teach that we Indians are extinct. So, why should people rally around changing the name of football teams and mascots around the country? The good news is that young Indians have organized around the country and successfully convinced whole towns to change the names and mascots of their teams. Indians, like other people, do not like being insulted.

The Washington DC football team and the city are Southern-bred. It wasn't until the very early 1990's that Black Americans riding public transportation stopped instinctively sitting in the back of the train or the bus. Blacks will fight you to the death for the right to call themselves niggers, and go ballistic if anyone white, brown, yellow, or red would dare call them a nigger! Sinclair, you and I and others are asking a populace tied to a tradition of bondage to stop calling their football team a name with a horrible stench and stigma to it. It is a noble idea, but fruitless. As long as whites own the images Black folks think are their own images the important shifts of consciousness will not occur, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream will remain just that: a dream!

These are my words. In part this my tribute to the 9/11 tributes because a similar mindset is embedded in the American mindset. Not even the bombings of three cities in 2001 could shake the country from its attachment to oppression, slavery and the marketing of lives. This is the American way. - Gregory E. Woods 9.11.13

ideal African masculinity & femininity