US Patent Office Cancels Washington Redskins' Trademark

[Mike]

When the news of the US Patent Office cancelling the Washington Redskins' trademark first came out I have to admit I thought maybe it was another one of those phony news articles from some unaccredited news source. That article talked about how Obama was at the head of a group who was putting pressure on the patent office and I just couldn't believe it. It's still hard to believe. With all the crap we have going on in the US right now this is what our President is sitting around thinking about and working on? How can this be a priority?

I read something else that stated Redskin was to Native Americans as the "N word" is to black people. The thing is, though, something like 70%, or more, of Native Americans don't even find the word Redskin offensive. I also saw a statistic of 72% of Native Americans don't think the Redskins should change their name. This just goes to show that the .gov will just fold to any group who demands they do something, as long as it is under the premise of political correctness. Let me also say that even that "N word" is only offensive if it's used in an offensive manner.

I, for one, don't think the Redskins should ever change their name. I don't feel like the Native Americans are, or even should be, offended by it. The name of a team is selected as a symbol of pride, not as a way to make fun of an entire group of people.

I'm wondering if the .gov would throw the same resources at this if it were a bunch of Texas cowboys trying to get the Dallas Cowboys to change their name because they thought it was offensive. Hey, who knows, maybe if the Redskins appeal fails that will be the next argument. Better yet, let's get PETA involved and let them tell us how offensive it is to animals and get teams like the Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and Philadelphia Eagles to change their names as well.

What do you think? Should the Redskins be forced to change their name?

 

[captkirk42]

In a word NO and to quote 97.8% of all Will Smith movies "AW HELL NO!" As a REDskins fan the latter does nicely. Besides the government has NO BUSINESS sticking its nose into FOOTBALL.

Getting back to the topic. Yes to some Native Americans the word "Redskins" is akin to the "N" word for Black people (even though many black people use the N word carelessly among themselves or when talking about other black people). According to many polls the majority of Native Americans are NOT offended by the term. Heck there are even a couple of High Schools that use the name Redskins for their nickname and one of them is on a Navajo reservation and over 90% of the people there are not offended by the name.

Forcing the Redskins to change their name sets the precedence to open up the floodgates for name changing because the name offends someone. Almost all the NFL teams could be offensive to someone. Change all the team names to flowers how does the Dalas Daffodils sound? Washington Wildflowers?

Might as well not have any team nicknames at all just call the team by the city they are in.

 

[franklinguy52]

I do not believe that the government should have the ability to force their hand but from a business perspective I would change the name, as well as the colors. Think about the amount of money that it would produce and now they can blame the government for forcing them to do it.

 

[sliqwill]

the funniest thing ive seen is the "KEEP THE NAME, CHANGE THE LOGO"

I didn't read where Obummer was big on this, I know Harry Reid has been going after it for awhile...there are too many 'flag' stories going around where the government releases things where timing couldn't be more suspect...

VA Scandal (which I read about at the beginning of the year, and has been a running joke for a solid 10+ years)...oh man, this looks bad...lets get Bowe Bergdahl back...oh man, that one didn't work did it...what can we do to get this out of the news...ISIS is taking over Iraq (nevermind the fact that for over a thousand years there has been religious infighting between the tribes occupying the area known as Iraq)..."WE WONT USE MILITARY ASSETS IN IRAQ"...BENGHAZI mastermind captured...remember, we weren't using troops in Libya either, so who got him? (reminds me of when Special Forces grabbed the female Jessica hostage in Iraq years ago that was a setup)...US CARRIER ENTERS PERSIAN GULF (when I was 'in theatre' back in 2002, there was ALWAYS at least 1 carrier in the Northern Arabian Gulf (PERSIAN GULF), then DESTROYER IN MISSILE RANGE OF IRAQ, again, when I was active the 'declassified' range on a Tomahawk 3-C (C is a 1 target, D is a multi-target, think carpet bombing, and a 3 is a longer range than a 2) was 1000 NAUTICAL miles, so just over 1150 regular people miles, not like you have to be close to fire one of those...and that was 12 years ago, since then they have developed a T-TWCS system where the missile can be fired from ship and enter into a 'holding pattern' awaiting further tasking, accuracy could take out an orange road cone from 700+ miles out, and if programmed to strike at a specific time, it would hit within 3 tenths of a second, again from 700+ miles out...

seems for 'no military action' there is quite a bit of action...not to mention an LSD or LHA is in theatre with 500+ Marines and their transport vehicles...

its a shell game with the government, they are trying to run a 3 card monte on the public...

what can take the heat off them? THE NFL, the most popular sport in America...

anyone seen major network coverage of the MAJOR food stamp scandal in Georgia...

so many people from this current administration need to be removed it isn't even funny...and just for stuff that has come to light over the last 6 weeks...oh, and lets not forget the IRS computer system crashed so they don't have the emails subpoenaed by Congress...

 

[sliqwill]

and if we want to get into 'offensive' team names, there are a TON, not counting the 'usual' ones, but we will look at the others, that 'currently' aren't deemed offensive

Dodgers - people who left the country to avoid the Vietnam War
Angels/Padres/Saints - religious connotations
Raiders/Pirates/Buccaneers - derogatory term of seafaring people
Canadians - restaurant slang for black person
Panthers - Logo is a BLACK PANTHER, a racist group, while not the 'official' logo of the group, think how well Ghosts would go over as a team nickname where the helmet depicted ghosts with pointy hats

 

[Mike]

I do not believe that the government should have the ability to force their hand but from a business perspective I would change the name, as well as the colors. Think about the amount of money that it would produce and now they can blame the government for forcing them to do it.

That's one way to look at it but they have to at least make it look like they're putting up a fight even if this were their intention. I think a lot of Redskin fans are like Kirk and don't want to see the name changed. While it would likely be profitable in terms of merchandise sales, it would also cost them a LOT of time and money getting everything changed over.

 

[sliqwill]

from what I gather the merch is spread equally among the 32 teams to try to keep the small market teams on a level playing field...the move is simply to get the other owners to start losing money to try to go how the NBA did Donald Sterling...

if they keep the name, they lose, say 3%, but the other teams also lose 3%, and if they do change it, while overall team clothing sales will increase, they will only see 3%...this isn't a huge deal to a franchise worth in excess of $1 BILLION...sure if you are down to your last $1 and they take $0.03 away from you, it sucks, but if you have $1 Billion, 3% and you still have way more money than you can really spend (sure its possible, look at what Tyson brought in and went belly up)...

Snyder has enough money that it doesn't matter what the NFL says or what the government says...I think Snyder is more stubborn than Al Davis or Jerry Jones, and how do you think they would respond to stuff?...Al Davis sued the NFL in the 80's and likely got screwed in the 83 draft because of Davis...

Snyder is the Donald Trump of the NFL, he doesn't care, and he has enough money to where he doesn't need to care

 

[natehaselby02]

I saw an article suggesting the potential new name. A couple of them I really liked. Just drop the "red" and let them be the Skins. Everyone already calls them by it anyways. Another was to drop "red" and add "pig" to become Pigskins.

 

[Mike]

I saw an article suggesting the potential new name. A couple of them I really liked. Just drop the "red" and let them be the Skins. Everyone already calls them by it anyways. Another was to drop "red" and add "pig" to become Pigskins.

Oh yeah, there have been a ton of names thrown around the last week or so. Some of them are funny as heck! I don't see them changing unless they're finally forced to, which means a long appeals process. ESPN reported that according to one of their sources (yes, this is 3rd party info here) the appeals process could take up to 5 years! That's a LONG time before they're forced to change their name, and that's only if they lose the appeal.

I'm looking forward to seeing this thing come to an end so we'll know how it turns out. I'm also anxious to see how this affects high school and college teams that use Native American terms.

The high school I graduated from, and my kids currently attend, are the Indians. I work with a school board member and he's told me that they get annual threats to change their name or be sued. The funny thing is none of the letters come from Native Americans. They all come from a Mormon organization.

 

[natehaselby02]

Yes there are a lot of high schools in my area that use Native American terms for their mascot. I know of a couple of colleges that have changed their names but schools that have a big Native American community, like the Central Michigan Chippewas, have a sense of pride and won't change. It really doesn't matter to me either way because I don't find it negative at all but I'm not Native American and I could see where Native Americans would be upset with this, but I've never heard a Native American been called a "redskin" or anything else.

 

[Mike]

It really doesn't matter to me either way because I don't find it negative at all but I'm not Native American and I could see where Native Americans would be upset with this, but I've never heard a Native American been called a "redskin" or anything else.

The thing is, though, that I've yet to see any evidence that states that Native Americans, as a whole, find the term offensive. In fact, ESPN's survey stated that over 70% (I really think it said 90%) of Native Americans don't even find the word offensive. I'd really like to know where the .gov gets their information that the Native Americans are even the ones who want it changed. My bet is that they don't!

Like @sliqwill said, this is probably just a ploy the .gov is using to try to turn the focus off of the foreign policy and on to something less important.

 

[natehaselby02]

I think I actually have heard about that survey and I believe it was somewhere in the 70 percent range of Native Americans who didn't find offensive. This clearly seems like a "watch what this hand is doing" kind of thing while the other "hand" is doing something we don't want.

 

[Indiana Jones]

I saw an article suggesting the potential new name. A couple of them I really liked. Just drop the "red" and let them be the Skins. Everyone already calls them by it anyways.

Gee.... I wonder what the cheerleader outfits would look like then.... O.O

 

[James DeBusk]

the only nickname I find offensive is the Titans....that was the original Jets name,as for Tennessee...It shudda been the Copperheads.That name was in the running and it has bite !

 

[Mike]

Gee.... I wonder what the cheerleader outfits would look like then.... O.O

I wouldn't mind finding out!