Look, Fat, here’s the deal, as Old Joe Biden would say: the left has won the culture wars. But that was just the first round. The second round isn’t going so well for the fascist forces of hatred and division masked as equity and inclusion. Patriots continue to pour Bud Light down the drain for trying to force the trans madness upon its unwilling customer base, and now the nickname wars, which Leftists had every reason to believe were won and settled once and for all, have taken an unexpected turn: a Native American group wants that football team in Washington to start calling itself “Redskins” again, or else face a boycott. Yes, a Native American group.
Washington’s WJLA reported Monday that “in a letter to the Washington Commanders Monday, the Native American Guardians Association (NAGA) demanded a meeting with the team’s new ownership to discuss a controversial name change.” Healy Baumgardner, who is president of NAGA’s Global Impact Campaigns, said that NAGA has asked the Commanders for a meeting several times before, and been repeatedly stonewalled: “We attempted to have an open dialogue with the now Washington Commanders since they made the name change several years ago with no response by them to have a conversation. We felt that it was time to apply public pressure.”
That public pressure comes in the form of a boycott threat, which, after the crash-and-burn of Bud Light, the Commanders should take seriously. NAGA’s letter “is the latest step in the organization’s ‘Reclaim the Name’ campaign, which seeks to bring back the team’s previously retired ‘Redskins’ monicker [sic]. A petition supporting the effort boasts over 60,000 signatures as of Monday night, a figure which matches the seating capacity of the Commanders’ FedEx Field.” The petition has bite: “the organization punctuated its meeting invitation by threatening to push for a boycott if their requests continued to go unheard.”
NAGA’s letter explicitly invokes patriots’ recent massive victory in the culture wars: “Should we need to encourage a national boycott similar to what happened with Anheuser Busch which is now down $27 billion (note, not one brick thrown, not one highway blocked, not one bridge burned) – WE WILL DO JUST THAT.” Oh, what a glorious paragraph.
In the left’s world view, this sort of thing was never, ever supposed to happen, and leftism equips its victims with no possible way to understand it. Native Americans were supposed to be deeply offended by the Redskins name, and triumphant at its demise. Yet here is not a gang of the cloddish, culturally insensitive, racist white males that the left loves to imagine exist demanding that the old name be restored, but the very people that name is supposed to have offended.
Baumgardner stated: “In terms of changing the name Redskins, the Native American community was never asked how they felt about it. Once again, we are met by closed doors and no open dialogue with the Commanders leadership or the executives.” The NAGA letter to the Commanders “cites lawsuits, polls and general sentiment supporting their argument that Native Americans do not find ‘Redskin’ to be a derogatory term.” Many people profess to find “Redskin” offensive in a way that even “Indian” is not – but if these Native Americans don’t find it insulting, why should anyone else?
Related: Tackling the Big Issues, New York Bans Schools From Having Native American Mascots
This is a decidedly unwelcome point of view, but really, it’s just simple common sense. The left’s entire campaign against names such as “Redskins” and “Indians” was predicated on the assertion that such names were demeaning and degrading to the groups involved. “Native Americans are not your mascots,” leftists told us unctuously, although no one ever seems to have gotten upset about sports team names such as Padres (demeaning to Franciscan friars, no?) or Cowboys (insulting to all those who make a living with bovines?) or Lions and Tigers and Bears (surely degrading all noble members of the animal kingdom, that is, the four-legged community).
In fact, wokescolds have tried to have it both ways, claiming that the “Viking” name is “idolizing conquest.” Wait, why isn’t this one degrading and demeaning, like “Redskin”? When it comes to names such as “Vikings” and “Crusaders,” suddenly leftists forget that team names are designed to insult people and start complaining that they’re glorifying white supremacy.
This unmasks the real game that is being played: leftists want to force patriots to dance to their tune, and to be on the defensive about every conceivable thing that Americans not too long ago regarded as benign and took for granted. This lays the groundwork for the thorough transformation of society that Barack Obama and Old Joe have threatened to inflict upon us. Once we accept that the left’s self-appointed moral arbiters have the right to change everything about our lives, resistance to their agenda is stymied.
That’s why NAGA’s pushback against the Commanders is significant. One of the groups that leftists claim to be supporting and defending is going off the leftist reservation. If the Commanders start suffering financially as a result, so much the better. We’ll be one step closer to the left’s entire house of cards starting to tumble down.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member