NFL Redskins name 'racist': US Senate leader
Washington (AFP) - The Washington Redskins name is a racist relic that has no place in today's multi-cultural NFL and must be changed, the leader of the US Senate said Wednesday.

The American football team in the US capital has faced a backlash for decades, particularly from Native American groups that see the name as a racial slur, but the prickly issue of racism in US sports is back in the spotlight after the NBA banned the Los Angeles Clippers owner.

Weighing in with the most forceful case against the Redskins name in years, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the NFL should take a leaf out of the National Basketball Association (NBA) playbook and confront racism head on.

"I... applaud the NBA's work to swiftly move to stamp out bigotry in its ranks," Reid said in a floor speech, after Clippers owner Donald Sterling was banned for life Tuesday over his racist comments caught on audio tape.

"The National Football League should take an assist from the NBA and pick up the slack," Reid said as he urged the NFL to stop "sitting on its hands doing nothing while an entire population of Americans has been denigrated."

Reid said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should "remove this hateful term from your league's vocabulary and rid the league of racism and bigotry. Your fans will support it."


Reid, a former boxer, from Nevada, a state with a substantial Native American population, also took aim at Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, who has adamantly defended his team's name.

Reid blasted Snyder's efforts to hide behind tradition in keeping the name, and said the owner has taken no leadership on the delicate issue.

"What tradition?" Reid posed. "A tradition of racism is all that name leaves in its wake."

"I urge Daniel Snyder to do what is morally right."

This week's swift and decisive NBA action may have set a precedent of zero tolerance for racism in top-shelf American sports.

The Oneida Indian Nation, leader of the Change the Mascot campaign that wants the Redskins name dropped, said the NBA made "a courageous stand" against racism in sport.

"The NBA has shown leagues like the NFL that they have a moral responsibility to take disciplinary action against people like Dan Snyder, who also continues to proudly promote bigotry with the use of a dictionary-defined racial slur as his team's name," Oneida representative Ray Halbritter said.

Earlier this month, United Nations expert James Anaya, who oversees global rights of indigenous peoples, deemed the Redskins name a symbol of centuries of abuse faced by Native Americans, although he stopped short of calling formally for it to be changed.

It has to be first called racism by Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson before it is racism, ok?

I say we ban Harry Reid and focus more on jobs, poverty, education, the economy and personal freedom instead of stirring up misdirection from the important issues and away from their lack of leadership or morality!

jesse Jackson has not been a spokesperson or public activist in DECADES,, I sure wish people would get over him,,lol

as to Sharpton, he has his own show where he HAS in the past addressed the offensiveness of the name, so its really not about him either

,,as for me,, I see how it can be offensive and I do think the 'higher road' would be to change it to something else,,,,

I still prefer the idea of feeding politicians, lawyers and liberals to the starving gators in Florida and Louisiana.

Roger That!!

Morally right? Harry Reid advising someone on what is morally right?


The man wouldn't know a moral correctness if it fell out of the sky and it hit him.

I think they should keep the redskin name, but change the logo to Custer's bloody face..

That is a true compromise..

How about Harry's bloodied Face!
Should be able to find a Piccie from his Boxing-Days,that seem to have scrambled his Brain so bad!

Redskins should sell the naming rights to large corporations like Fed-ex.
The could call the team the Fed-exskins.

Their stadium is FedEx Field..

So FedExSkins playing at Little Big Horn Field..

I can live with that..

Problem solved!

the Nation is falling apart,yet that Lunkerhead has nothing better to do than worrying about the name of a Sports-Team!

Remember.....Reids a big cause of this nation falling apart....


To fix anything would be like him admitting his incompetence

Then maybe they should be the Washington "Reidskins".

How about the Washington Corruption?

liberal lunkheads?

come now, we certainly understand that ONE report about ONE thing a person said or did doesn't indicate that they haven't said or done ANYTHING else,,,lol


IM sure he 'worries' about many things , like most human beings,,,

[url} http://www.reid.senate.gov/ {/url}

Well Ms Harmony.. being that we saw .1% growth during the first quarter of this year I would hope that the senate majority leader would be a little more concerned about that than the name of a football team.. just saying. .

of course, and Im just saying, nowhere do I see his 'concerns' ranked,, he expresses many,, like most humans do,,,