National Congress of American Indians President: Washington NFL Team Players Should “rip down that name like it was a statue of a Confederate general in their locker room”

Good for National Congress of American Indians President Fawn Sharp, who yesterday urged Washington’s NFL team’s players to “#StandUpBySitting until they #ChangeTheName.” See below for some highlights from Sharp’s superb column. Also, here in Virginia, it’s long past time to ditch the appalling R**skins’ “Pride Caucus.”

• “The fact that the most prominent sports franchise in America’s capital uses a racial slur against Native Americans as its brand name is not only a disgrace—it’s a confession. It’s an obvious, all-capital-letters confession of the entitlement and racism of America’s ruling classes, who openly confess and demonstrate that Native Americans are the only community of color in America whom they hold in such subhuman contempt that they can be openly slurred on national TV as a matter of corporate policy.”
• “The racial slur can no longer be removed by the complicit, indifferent, tone-deaf ownership of the franchise, because the stain they have fixed onto their own name and enterprises is now permanent…Since it’s too late to give the team name up, it’s time for it to be taken. It’s time for the players to rip down that name like it was a statue of a Confederate general in their locker room.”
• “As long as that team name stands, players of conscience should sit at home rather than wear the NFL equivalent of the Confederate flag.“
• “The only question is what player will show the courage, the integrity, the vision, and the compassion to be the hero that first stands up for what is right.”