The organization dropped the racial slur “Redskins” as its name and removed the logo that was closely associated with that name: the profile of a long-haired, two-feathered Aboriginal man.
Today, a white Republican United States senator Montana rekindles the debate by blocking a bill financing the Revitalization of the decrepit RFK stadium for the commanders, who played miles away in Maryland. Senator Steve Daines He says he will block the legislation until the NFL and the Commanders honor the old logo in some way.
Daines declined requests from The Associated Press to explain his position or respond to criticism from Native Americans who say such efforts are rooted in racism.
The complicated history of the logo
The original logo was designed by a member of the Blackfeet Nation in the state of Montana. members of the tribe be proud of it and the legacy of the man who helped design it in the early 1970s — Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, former chairman of the Blackfeet Nation Tribe and former president of the National Congress of American Indians, the nation’s oldest American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization.
Wetzel’s family says Daines and Wetzel’s son Put onwho died last year at age 74, formed a friendship that could fuel the senator’s fight over the logo.
Indian territory is typically a bipartisan issue in Congress.
Daines serves on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and has worked with Democratic colleagues on clean water access for tribal communities. He supported the adoption of a truth and healing commission to investigate the history of Indian Boarding Schoolsa bill brought by Senator Elizabeth Warrena Democrat from Massachusetts.
Daines has also used the policy area to attack the Biden administration and was one of the fiercest opponents of the nomination of Deb Haaland, the first Native American to lead the Interior Department.
He accused her of being hostile to the energy and natural resource extraction industries and said she would use the nomination to “negatively impact the Montana way of life.” blocked the nomination of the woman who wanted to become the first Native American federal court judge in Montana. Daines said the Biden administration did not consult with her office about the nomination, a claim the White House disputes.
A painful symbolism?
Daines said in a prepared statement that he would delay stadium legislation until representatives of the Washington Commanders and the NFL show they are working with the Wetzel family and Blackfeet Nation leaders to find a way to “honor the history of the logo and the heritage of our tribal nations and restore the organization’s role as a defender of Indian Country.”
For many Indigenous people, the team’s original name and logo represent a history of racial discrimination and violence, as well as contemporary struggles over the ethical representation of Native Americans in popular culture. The National Congress of American Indians, the organization Walter Wetzel once led, has been fighting to have mascots like this one removed since 1968. Numerous psychological studies have shown the harmful effects that Native American mascots have on children.
A divided family
Founded in Boston in 1932, the football team had a Native American as its mascot, but after moving to Washington DC in 1937, the logo was changed to a spear, later an “R” adorned with two feathers.
Walter Wetzel worked for the Department of Labor to address housing and employment disparities in Indian Territory. He worked closely with President John F. Kennedy, who he and Robert Kennedy were friends with. Wetzel worked with the football team to redesign its logo. He believed that if the team was going to have a Native American-themed mascot, it should at least be representative, his grandson Ryan Wetzel said.
Walter Wetzel suggested a profile of a former Blackfoot chief, John Two Guns White Calf. A likeness of this image would be used from the 1972 season until its retirement in 2020.
“I understand the controversy around the name, I understand it,” Ryan Wetzel said. “I come from a family that is divided by the name. But the logo, how do we preserve it and use it going forward?”
Ryan Wetzel said that in his later years, his father Don had a leg amputated but he regularly went to the Capitol to drum up support for preserving the logo, and Daines took up the cause. Daines reached out to Ryan Wetzel after his father passed away last year to see if he could help jumpstart the logo restoration effort in some way.
A “dog whistle”?
A Daines spokesman said discussions with Washington commanders about how to honor the Wetzel family were ongoing and productive. In remarks at a committee hearing in May on the RFK Stadium bill, Daines suggested the logo could be revitalized to sell merchandise, with some of the proceeds going toward issues such as the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women.
But Native American advocates and scholars say using the old logo is an inappropriate and damaging path to justice and equity for Indigenous people. Regardless of how the image was chosen, it cannot be separated from the racial slur it once carried, said Crystal Echo Hawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation and founder and CEO of IllumiNative, a nonprofit that works to increase Native American visibility. She called the old logo a “dog whistle” for the team’s former name.
“The science underscores the harmful impact of these images on Indigenous people,” said Dr. Stephanie Fryberg, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and one of the nation’s leading experts on the subject.
Fryberg, who is a member of the Tulalip Tribe in Washington state, said the use of these mascots leads to increased rates of depression, self-harm, substance abuse and suicidal ideation, particularly among children.
“The continued use of these racist images prevents Native Americans from existing and being honored in contemporary social contexts,” she said.
What did the Blackfeet Nation get?
In Montana, some Blackfeet Nation council members are wondering why so little of the millions of dollars generated by the football team using the White Calf image, designed by a former Blackfeet Nation president, ever went to the Blackfeet people.
Decades ago, the football team donated a few vans to help transport Blackfeet elders to a nearby VA center, said Everett Armstrong, a Blackfeet Nation council member, but he was unaware of any other resources or revenues that had been shared with the tribe. A spokesman for the Washington Commanders could not provide other examples, but said the team was in talks with the Wetzel family.
Armstrong says the logo and its legacy are generating strong reactions. But one group feels completely excluded from the debate: White Calf’s descendants.
They were not consulted in the 1970s about the use of his image and have never been questioned about it since, said Armstrong, himself a descendant of White Calf.
“They would like to have a seat at the table,” he said.