Normally you'd expect the PC antics of the Washington Post to be found in the A-section or Opinion page, but this time they're from sports columnist Mike Wise, denouncing the name "Redskins."
"I have been wanting to write about this issue since I got this job 18 months ago. The boss told me to hold out before I alienated most of the city."
Now you get your chance to alienate most of the city.
"I waited a year and observed, trying not be too judgmental, figuring I was just some knee-jerk newcomer who didn't get it. I still don't get it."
Wise wondered why so many liberals in the area were willing to look the other way when it came to the Redskins.
"All those liberal crusaders in the District and suburban Washington, working and writing for their own passionate causes but pleading ignorance on this one."
The name is as denigrating as black face, he writes.
"Don't they realize some folks feel the same way about the Confederate flag, the way others used to feel about Amos and Andy, about putting on black face? Until time told them they were wrong, that they should have known better."
A Redskins spokesman was asked if "the team were called the Washington Negroes or the D.C. Rabbis, there would be no public outrage."
The spokesman told him, "I don't know."
Wise closed with a lecture for those who have always loved the name.
"I understand the logo is undeniably a cultural symbol to thousands....
"But it's not your history. It's not your cultural symbol. It never was. You co-opted it, seized someone else's identity and made it part of your own. When Native people try to explain that, you should listen -- just as you would listen when a black person tells you they don't appreciate the term 'colored.'"
It looks like a certain columnist will be reassigned to girls softball.
