Washington Redskins name change: A view from real Native Americans

The Washington Redskins have been under tremendous pressure over the past decade to abandon their name and mascot, but not all Native Americans are behind that cause.

The debate over the Washington Redskins name – and its alleged offensiveness – has really picked up steam over the last couple of years. In what turned out to be an interesting and unexpected twist, I was able to get some Native American perspective on this issue. What I learned surprised me.

I should preface this article by explaining that the interviews I conducted were not planned, but rather accidental. Also, the information I was able to collect did not follow any scientific model and the results would not hold up under the scrutiny of intense statistical analysis. However, to dismiss this anecdotal evidence as irrelevant would be, at the very least, closed-minded.

My family and friends vacation at Flathead Lake in Montana every year. We rent a lake house and enjoy the beautiful clear water of Flathead Lake which sits majestically in a valley between two enormous mountain ranges which run to the south of Glacier National Park. I don’t believe there is a more beautiful place on Earth.

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Flathead Lake is the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. It is about 30 miles long and a few miles across. The southern half of Flathead Lake sits on the Flathead Indian Reservation. You wouldn’t know you were on an Indian Reservation if you missed the small sign that welcomed you. But, my brother-in-law knows the area very well and took me for a few beers one gorgeous afternoon to a little bar called The Idle Stirrup.

I knew we were on the Indian Reservation before I entered the small and weathered wooden building, but once I stepped inside I was somewhat taken aback. There were a dozen or so patrons scattered in groups of two or three around the one room structure. A few sat at the bar while the others were nursing their drinks at one of the small wooden tables that were arranged haphazardly around the room.

As we entered we could hear the normal bar chatter. People were talking and laughing, the smell of fried food and stale beer smacked of a college bar from back in the day. But a couple steps in and everything changed. Every single person in the place stopped talking.

You could hear the proverbial pin drop – and I will admit I felt kind of uncomfortable for a split second as we stood there – as we were stopped dead in our tracks by the deafening silence and the intense stares of the Native Americans that seemed to be glaring at the two big white guys standing at the door.

Every single person in the place was a Native American. The customers as well as the staff. I myself am 6’2, and my brother-in-law, Frank, 6’7. We both go well over 200 pounds and Frank, with his long black hair and wildly unkempt beard, (every bit the biker dude look) might have come across as intimidating but looks can be deceiving.

Frank is the nicest, friendliest, most personable guy I have ever met. And me? I’m as harmless as a heel hound. However, for this one extremely awkward and uncomfortable moment we were most certainly out of place. Until…

“Drinks all around!” shouted Frank.

His proclamation was met with hoots and hollers and instantly we were as welcome as rain in July. Suddenly, a short-statured woman, obviously and proudly of American Indian decent emerged from the kitchen. “Frank!” she screamed.

We made our way to the bar and as we took our position on our stools we gave each other a knowing glance. His said, “Ha, got you, bro!” Mine? “You’re a jerk!”

Fast forward two hours and Frank and I are having a grand time with the locals. We shot some pool, threw some darts, drank more than a couple of beers and eventually, started talking football.

In this quaint, log cabin-ish looking, lakeside establishment, populated entirely by Native American Indians (save the two tourists), hung four Washington Redskins pennants. Each from different ages of Redskin lore they hung conspicuously on the wall behind the pool table.

They adorned the wall next to a thumbtacked affixed paper copy of the menu, a fake stuffed Buffalo’s head, a picture of Joe Theismann, and an autographed picture of Dave Butz, of all people.

Having worked for the Maryland state government for most of my adult life I had been conditioned to steer clear of anything that could even remotely approach the dangerous waters of political incorrectness. But, intrigued by the memorabilia and my political inhibitions lubricated with a few frothy lagers, I asked William Mountain of the Sun if there were, in fact, Redskin fans among us. What ensued was a fascinating and somewhat surprising conversation that ultimately included every single person in the bar.

“The Redskins are our favorite team,” William replied, standing just a little taller as he made the announcement.

It was not lost on me how cool it was that I was in northwest Montana playing pool with an American Indian named William Mountain of the Sun.

When we eventually arrived at the taboo subject of the offensiveness of the name he said something I’ll never forget.

“No full-blooded Redskin would be offended by being called a Redskin.” He looked around the room. “We are proud of who we are.”

My liberal armor seemed to melt away as he continued to share his thoughts on the matter.

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“That is a game,” he said, “white men are white men, black men are black men, red men are red men. Why should we be shamed by being called Redskin?”

At this point, others had joined a conversation that at every point remained jovial and extremely pleasant.

The woman who had yelled out Frank’s name (her name was Donna) chimed in such a manner that suggested she had had this conversation many times before.

“You know what’s offensive?”, she began, “‘Native American’. Every time I hear ‘Native American’, it reminds me that this was all our land and it was stolen from us. It reminds me that we were conquered.”

And, just as things almost started to get too impassioned, she cut her self off and, pointing at the empty mug in my hand asked, “Another one?”

Over the course of that next beer, I became fully engulfed in a conversation that frankly had me dumbstruck. I listened as an American Indian explained to me that, “Our people are all but forgotten. Most Americans don’t think about us. They don’t talk about us. Soon they won’t even know about us. Should we be angry that this group, this team, remembers us? Honors us? Braves on the warpath,” he went on. “Hail to the Redskins!”

It is worth pointing out that there was not a dissenting opinion. The entirety of this eatery was in agreement that the name Redskins was a manner in which to pay homage to their people. It was a name that recognized and honored their heritage. I was fascinated, bewildered, and more than a little strangely relieved to find that I had been on the wrong side of this argument from the start.

I can hear people from my circles back in Bethesda, and Annapolis, and Baltimore now, “What you’ve got a sample size of 12? Pffft! Means nothing!”

Well, it meant something to these people and, posted or not, I felt an obligation to those folks to share the story.

Frank and I spent that afternoon with some Dakota Indians. They were friendly, funloving, and obviously proud people. They seemed to very much enjoy our company as we did theirs. But I will never forget William telling me that it was the white man that found the word ‘Redskin’ offensive because it had the word ‘skin’ in it.

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He laughed when he said it but I will always remember the day a funny, very good pool playing, proud Dakota Indian threw my phony-baloney liberal ideology right in my face.

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