Redskins face legal challenge over team name

Opposition to President Barack Obama isn't the only subject that has Washington mulling over thorny issues of race and bigotry.

As the new American football season hits its stride, the city's beloved team, the Redskins, are being taken to the Supreme Court over their allegedly-offensive name.

A group of Native Americans has filed a legal challenge against a trademark the club owns over "Redskins".

They claim to find the term offensive and disparaging - and say it should not, therefore, be entitled to any form of commercial protection under US law.

The case pits the future of a billion-dollar sports franchise against the grievances of a people whose historic mistreatment represents a stain on the national conscience.

At its heart is an issue of semantics. Coined in an era before political correctness, "redskin" is a term many Native Americans find insulting. Most dictionaries describe it as offensive. In some quarters, the term is considered to be as unacceptable as the "N-word" for African-Americans.

"It is the worst thing in the English language you can be called if you are a native person," said Suzan Shown Harjo, a Native American writer who is lead plaintiff in the case.

"It is basically characterising a person by their skin. How wrong is that?"

Nonsense, asserts the football club, which is among the most honoured in the sport's history.

It claims the name, which was adopted in 1933 and registered as a trademark in 1967, is taken from an affectionate term once used to describe the red paint Indian warriors used on their skin.

The legal dispute between the two groups has been rumbling since 1992, and saw an initial victory for the Native American lobby in 1997, overturned on appeal.

Harjo and her supporters are petitioning the Supreme Court to make a final ruling and the request is due to be considered by Christmas. If they win, the Redskins would be forced to change their name.

The Redskins aren't the only professional sports franchise whose nickname puts them on thin ice. Atlanta's team are called the Braves. Cleveland's baseball team, the Indians, have a mascot which has been likened to a golliwog.

Yet "Redskin" is a peculiarly troublesome term.

Some linguists claim it was coined by white settlers obsessed by scalping, a practice carried out by some - but by no means all - tribes. It implies, so the argument goes, that every Native American is a barbaric savage.

Concern over racial stereotypes related to team nicknames has been a hot potato in US sport for decades. In the 1980s, the Kansas City football team, the Chiefs, ditched their Native American mascot in full regalia who would ride on-field at halftime with a cuddly wolf mascot.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

* Redskins has been used since the 18th century and generally regarded as a description of Native Americans' skin colour.
* Possibly derived from the blood on the scalps of natives, traded as mementoes after battle.
* The US Commission on Civil Rights wants an end to such names for non-Native teams.

- INDEPENDENT