US Patent Office Cancels Trademark on 'Redskins'

[Hooch]

I'm not crazy about the name, but I don't believe the use is intended to be disparaging.

The Racist Redskins

When George Preston Marshall died in 1969, he left some money to his children but directed that the bulk of his estate be used to set up a foundation in his name. He attached, however, one firm condition: that the foundation, operating out of Washington, D.C., should not direct a single dollar toward “any purpose which supports or employs the principle of racial integration in any form.” Think about that. This was not 1929 or 1949. Even in 1960 such a diktat might have been, well, “understandable” in a Southern city such as Washington then was. But 1969; “in any form.”

This is the man who gave the Washington Redskins their name. He was one of the most despicable racists in the American sporting arena of the entire 20th century. He thought Redskins was funny, just as he thought the war paint and feather headdress he made the head coach wear were funny.

Telling, but not surprising. This is a man who proposed to his wife against the backdrop of a group of black performers he’d hired to croon “Carry Me Back to Ol’ Virginny” as he popped the question (“Massa and Missus have long since gone before me / Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore”). Who ordered the Redskins marching band to play “Dixie” right before “The Star-Spangled Banner” prior to every game—up into the 1960s. And who probably instigated the banning of black athletes from the NFL from 1933 until 1946.

Most famously of all, Marshall was the last owner to accept a black player—fully 15 years after the ban was lifted. And his team drafted an African-American then (in 1961) only because it was forced to by the government—the then-new stadium that we call RFK Stadium today was built on Department of Interior land, which permitted the Kennedy administration to order the lessee (the team) to adhere to federal nondiscrimination policies. In other words, Marshall wasn’t merely a standard-issue racist of the time, like H.L. Mencken or countless others. He was diseased. He seethed with hatred of nonwhite people. And “Redskins” is his handiwork. Because “Braves” wasn’t quite descriptive enough.