The Washington Post’s campaign against the name “Redskins” continued on Sunday with a column by former Metro section editor Robert McCartney headlined “Ready-made replacements for ‘R’ word.” He never used the word “Redskins.”
McCartney and the Post were pushing their politically correct logo designs, including one for the “Griffins” that looked an awful lot like a chicken. That might be poetic, but it’s sad. McCartney announced he was picked as a judge for a replace-Redskins logo contest:
Another judge he mentioned was also a liberal journalist, David Plotz of Slate.com. The leading designs were for the Washington Warriors or the Washington Redtails (which would nicely match the chicken logo). But McCartney loved the anti-racist imagery of that:
My favorite was the second-place finisher, the “Washington Redtails,” which won honorable mention.
“Red Tails” was a nickname for units of the Tuskegee Airmen, the African American pilots who won acclaim for heroics in the air while battling racial prejudice within the U.S. military during World War II.
The logo features a red-tailed warplane labeled “DC.” It’s a distinctive design and an inspired idea for the name.
(Historical bonus: Honoring black aviators would surely rile the ghost of the team’s notoriously racist, pro-segregation past owner, George Preston Marshall.)
Notorious-Marshall-tweaking certainly drives liberals to force a change. McCartney also liked a G.I. image for the helmet: “Why don’t our professional sports teams commemorate those heroes? Instead, we cling to idealized images that needlessly exasperate many of our nation’s original inhabitants."
