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Renaming The Redskins Won’t Save A Single Black Life
The Federalist ^ | 07/20/2020 | By Nathanael Blake

Posted on 07/20/2020 7:53:54 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

So long, Redskins. The movement sparked by the death of George Floyd has, at best, a mixed record on police reform, but it is racking up victories in the struggle against statues and problematic names. Making the police better is difficult; changing the name of a football team is an easy win.

Of course, the Redskins’ name did not trouble many American Indians, quite a few of whom took pride in it. Nor was it offensive to the many black football fans in the D.C. area who support the team. Indeed, the name was the least of the team’s problems.

Rather, the real constituency against the Redskins was in places like the Washington Post newsroom — mostly white, educated, and left-wing — and they’re just getting started. There are demands and plans to rename cities, airports, schools, other sports teams (the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League are reportedly caving), and just about anything and anyone. Some leftists want to cancel saints, and some are even attacking statues of Jesus.

Destroying Symbols Doesn’t Help Anyone

These symbolic purges of the inherited wickedness of the past will not save a single black life. They will not reduce the harassment and mistreatment that black men sometimes receive from the police, which South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott spoke movingly about while promoting his police reform bill. Democrats still killed his legislation. Perhaps they would prefer to preserve the problem so they can run on it this fall, rather than work with the GOP to address it.

Meanwhile, many local changes have consisted less of making the police better than of making them rarer. Permitting rioters to run rampant allowed mobs to inflict enormous damage, undoing decades of hard-won progress, often in minority neighborhoods. Attempts by armed militants to establish police-free “autonomous zones” ended in the murders of children. Even as the riots have (mostly) subsided, many cities are suffering from spikes in horrific violent crime.

Nor will destroying symbols and renaming stuff help close racial disparities in education, employment, and income. That would require, among other hard tasks, taking on the teachers unions that block education reform.

It would also discomfit affluent white liberals, who in theory favor education opportunities for poor minority children, but in practice spend a lot of money to ensure that their own kids attend excellent schools that poor minorities cannot afford. As the libertarian writer Megan McArdle has observed, good public schools are basically private schools that come bundled with granite countertops and hardwood floors.

From riots to cancel culture, almost nothing the left has done under the banner of Black Lives Matter will prevent another murder like Floyd’s. A cynic might conclude it’s all a con. Opportunistic (often white) grifters have cashed in by selling a toxic “anti-racism,” while political opportunists have worked to graft their pre-existing causes onto the latest movement. Corporate behemoths such as the NBA have bought some cheap PR by promoting social justice as they kowtow to a Chinese regime that runs concentration camps and uses slave labor.

Redskins Renaming Nothing More Than a Religious Ritual

No doubt some people are just mouthing social justice slogans to sell products or protect themselves from the mob, but many are sincere, even if their methods are ineffective. Iconoclasm and renaming are dumb ways of advancing police reform, but they are normal during revolutions, whether in politics or religion.

There is mix of both right now, with political activism taking on aspects of a religious revival and substituting for traditional sources of meaning. The vision of a Year Zero, in which everything begins anew, is a perennial temptation that transfers religious eschatological longing to the political realm.

This impulse motivates attempts to banish evil and remake the world through linguistic re-description, as if it were possible to atone for the sins of the world by destroying monuments and adopting new nomenclature. Wise people might sometimes rename or change what they publicly honor, but they will not do so in a sanctimonious frenzy, wantonly declaring anathemas over their entire history. This magical thinking might be especially alluring to those who make their living with words, and it explains why they are trying to confront racism and systematic inequality through symbolic gestures such as renaming sports teams.

These efforts are ineffective at their stated goals of reforming the police and establishing racial justice, but that does not mean there are no mundane consequences. They are part of a broader attempt at cultural revolution. The campus crazies of a few years ago are now out in the real world; they got real jobs and are taking over Google, The New York Times, and much more.

This is why our national dialogue (if we can call it that; it often feels more like a lecture) on racial justice has been given over to the concerns and obsessions of the educated professional class and those who aspire to it. They are skilled at taking offense and detecting the smallest of transgressions, often on behalf of others, then canceling people and things. They have no idea how to reform the police to best provide the full and equal protection of the law to poor and minority citizens.

After all the protests, riots, death, and destruction, those driving the narrative think justice for George Floyd means giving D.C. football fans the opportunity to spend $29.99 on a hat with the new team name — made by Chinese slave labor.


Nathanael Blake is a Senior Contributor at The Federalist. He has a PhD in political theory. He lives in Missouri.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: blacks; cancelculture; redskins
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To: SeekAndFind

True, but it trains ignorant guilt-ridden Whites that they must be prepared for the continued destruction of cultural symbols of our country.


21 posted on 07/20/2020 8:12:48 AM PDT by I want the USA back (BLM is a violent marxist movement designed to overthrow the US constitutional form of government.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Washington DC is rapidly becoming Zimbabwe on the Potomac.

Super blacks play football but ordinary blacks won’t spend the money to buy tickets.


22 posted on 07/20/2020 8:12:53 AM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12) Progressives are existential American enemies)
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To: SeekAndFind

Disband the NFL. That’ll save lives.


23 posted on 07/20/2020 8:17:22 AM PDT by WKUHilltopper
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To: Dilbert San Diego

I think there were at least two versions of the Senators. One of them moved to Minnesota and became the Twins. The Rangers may have been the second (expansion) edition that was established after the first one left.


24 posted on 07/20/2020 8:20:03 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("We're human beings ... we're not f#%&ing animals." -- Dennis Rodman, 6/1/2020)
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To: ConservativeInPA
Who cares? The Negro Football League (NFL) will be gone in five years.

I've been saying this to my football brethren for many moons now since the movement.

The NFL will never be what it once was. It is a double edged sword. We don't deserve it, but they do!

I'll miss it from time to time, but then all I have to do is remind myself of the Black Lives Matter lie and whose side I'm on.

25 posted on 07/20/2020 8:20:15 AM PDT by Tommy Revolts
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To: blueunicorn6
Yhey are fighting to change the name of Washington’s football team because they want everyone to see their liberal power.

They want organizations and people to fear them so that they can take money from them.

It’s about money

. Like Tony Montana sez, "First ju get de money

den ju get de power

den ju get de women"

26 posted on 07/20/2020 8:21:28 AM PDT by billyboy15
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To: Tommy Revolts

The NFL is a giant TV commercial masquerading as a sports league. Once you understand that, it’s easy to walk away from it.


27 posted on 07/20/2020 8:23:28 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("We're human beings ... we're not f#%&ing animals." -- Dennis Rodman, 6/1/2020)
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To: Alberta's Child

Yes that’s correct. There were two Washington Senators franchises.

The original Washington Senators moved to Minnesota for the 1961 season, and became the Minnesota Twins. The American League then added an expansion team in Washington, starting play in 1961, which kept the Senators name.

Then the expansion Washington Senators moved to Texas for the 1972 season.


28 posted on 07/20/2020 8:24:04 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: SeekAndFind

This author, like most others, buys into the notion that Floyd was “murdered.” He and others don’t even bother to couch their assertions as “alleged.” But Floyd was not murdered. At best, the officers were negligent, but they did not intend to kill Floyd. They actually were trying to help him and were waiting for EMS to arrive.


29 posted on 07/20/2020 8:26:00 AM PDT by Avalon Memories (Fight the Left - the communists - not our own.)
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To: Alberta's Child
The NFL is a giant TV commercial masquerading as a sports league. Once you understand that, it’s easy to walk away from it.

Yep!

30 posted on 07/20/2020 8:26:04 AM PDT by Tommy Revolts
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To: Avalon Memories

The family lawyer knows with certainty the cops will never be convicted and is rushing the civil suit before the acquittals

The black lawyer scum is a cancer that needs to be surgically removed


31 posted on 07/20/2020 8:28:48 AM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12) Progressives are existential American enemies)
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To: Texas Eagle
No, but it will encourage money pouring into Black Lives Matter. And that’s the whole purpose of BLM’s existence.

Pretty much.

I about lost it yesterday with regards to this. I was listening to Sirius XM's The Beatles Channel while driving around for early morning errands. They had on a guest host in Ringo Starr, who was celebrating his 80th birthday.

Ringo had planned several guests, and they were working for four charity groups. The first one he named was a group dealing with clean water projects for certain parts of the world. The second one he named was for a education group. Then he named the third "charity": BLM. I immediately turned off the channel and didn't return for the rest of the time I was driving. Ugh.

32 posted on 07/20/2020 8:29:30 AM PDT by CatOwner
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To: albie

And don’t forget the “black national anthem.” It’s a notion I hate with every fiber of my being. As a result, I will never watch an NFL game again. Not that the NFL cares what I do, but I care about my own conscience.


33 posted on 07/20/2020 8:32:15 AM PDT by Avalon Memories (Fight the Left - the communists - not our own.)
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To: Avalon Memories
" And don’t forget the “black national anthem.” It’s a notion I hate with every fiber of my being. As a result, I will never watch an NFL game again. Not that the NFL cares what I do, but I care about my own conscience."

Agree. I think this is going to be a deal breaker for even the most forgiving among us.

34 posted on 07/20/2020 8:37:38 AM PDT by precisionshootist (ui)
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To: Jane Austen

In case anyone is interested, the red skin referred to by the settlers was red body paint. Clay, berries & other.


35 posted on 07/20/2020 8:54:46 AM PDT by Cold Heart (Legalize Hydoxychlorquin)
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To: SeekAndFind
Tearing down statues and monuments won't save any black lives either, but that's not the point.

If this were really about "saving black lives", BLMers would concern themselves with fighting gang activity and other criminal violence in black communities, not with renaming sports teams, tearing down monuments, or boycotting brand name food products. However, to do so would be to admit that their own communities rather than "the man" is the source of most of their misfortune.

36 posted on 07/20/2020 8:59:02 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: Cold Heart

btt


37 posted on 07/20/2020 9:50:14 AM PDT by Jane Austen (Neo-cons are liberal Democrats who love illegal aliens and war.)
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To: Alberta's Child

Correct


38 posted on 07/20/2020 9:53:35 AM PDT by xp38
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To: billyboy15

39 posted on 07/20/2020 10:17:07 AM PDT by Svartalfiar
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To: Avalon Memories
And don’t forget the “black national anthem.” It’s a notion I hate with every fiber of my being. As a result, I will never watch an NFL game again. Not that the NFL cares what I do, but I care about my own conscience.

Funny thing is, is they aren't even cycling through all the African national anthems, since those are the only real "black" national anthems. The "Lift Every Voice and Sing" song is full of Christian references, so I'm not really sure how Dems support it...?
40 posted on 07/20/2020 10:22:29 AM PDT by Svartalfiar
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