Did you even read the article?
"The historical overtones of “redskin” may be faint to most Americans, but they’re still audible whenever it’s said. Indians themselves sometimes use the word in team names as a reclaimed epithet, but that dispensation doesn’t extend to whites, no more than the appearance of the N-word in hip hop lyrics gives whites permission to use it. If it’s a slur when you say it to an American Indian’s face, it’s a slur when you sing it with 80 thousand other fans. "
Strange, another linguist seems to be saying that redskin was a positive term in the past:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002961.html
O snap! A blog post says it’s okay! Well I guess racism is a thing of the past… welcome to the glorious future!
The term entered popular usage via the novels of James Fenimore Cooper.
Reason enough to ban it on its own.
“Tech support or Casino?”
In the early- to mid-nineteenth century the term was neutral, not pejorative, and indeed was often used in contexts in which whites spoke of Indians in positive terms.
Since the football team was named the Redskins in the 1960’s 1930’s and not the 1860’s 1830’s I’m not sure how this is relevant to the discussion at hand.
Note that the article from the OP mentions this exact same thing.
Fixed. I’m sure it was worth the time I took to do that.
It’s usually because they believe the recoding is an attempt at propaganda.
They falsely equate PC with other standard propaganda techniques.
So, when referencing Asians, ho should people distinguish between the two? “We’re having Hindustani tacos for dinner”? In the UK you could say you’re having “Asian tacos,” but this wouldn’t work in North America. Using the word “Indian” to refer to something or someone from India isn’t being lazy, even if it makes it hard for you do establish exactly what they mean.
Yup, but to some degree, like any mislabeling etc… there are people “taking it back”. I was passing through the Paiute reservation near black rock desert (hmm… yeah, going there) and some crafty individual had set up a trailer on the side of the road with a giant sign painted on plywood that read in huge letters “NDN tacos”. Took me a few seconds to realize that they were indeed selling yummy frybread tacos and I should haul my ass off the road ASAP and support a local business 
There was more than enough space to write “indian”, but they chose NDN. Since seeing that usage, I’ve seen it a few other places as well. Never had a chance to ask if it was an acronym or simply an abbreviation or some other thing.
Perhaps if you suggest renaming them the Washington Nappy Heads people will get the point.
I like that one much better than, “feather or dot?”
I think it’s not an abberviation so much as a new word that sounds similar enough it’s not a huge change from the old name, but different enough from ‘Indian’ to not be confused with people or things from India.
i’ve occasionally seen ‘Injun’ used that way.
Yep. Otherwise they’d complain less, and spend some time expanding their vocabularies.
Even when people try to get it right they sometimes get it wrong.
I have a cousin who is half Native American - from Alaska. This doesn’t automatically mean he’s an Eskimo (Inuit). They make up only two of the five major groups of indigenous peoples of Alaska. My cousin Jon is Athabascan, from the center of Alaska. So, even when someone uses the term “Inuit” thinking they’ve stepped up terminology from “Eskimo”, they’re still getting it wrong.
Your source (from 2006 and the last case) has some problems, not the least of which is this: the claim that the team coach, William “Lone Star” Dietz, who the team was supposedly named for, was an American Indian.
There’s no doubt that Dietz was a white man of German descent, and he may have only claimed indian heritage to avoid the draft.
“In fact, William Henry Dietz was born in 1884 in the village of Rice Lake, Wis., to white parents, according to his birth certificate and census records.”
The speeches quoted in your provided article (supposedly comfortably using the term as chiefs) were translated by white men at the time. We don’t know what the original form of that term was.
The biggest failure? That your author bothered to mention the overturned decision at the time, and provided this reason for overturning it.
“that there was an absence of evidence that the term redskin is disparaging in the particular context of the name of the sports team”
If you’ll just look up above at the team’s original fight song lyrics, I think you’ll find that just wasn’t so.
Your linguist flopped in 2006, and doesn’t read any better in 2014.
You could argue that the first people to call their continent India should be the only ones entitled to describe themselves as Indian. And while you’re at it, maybe even give them back the swastika and its original meaning. (anyone else doing it would have some explaining to do!)
African Americans have had their labels mutate for some time, there’s no reason why we can’t mutate names for Native Americans as well. One step in the right direction, would be to reference language groups in addition to tribes. Calling the native peoples where I live “Salish” and “Chinook” seems a hell of a lot more respectful than calling them “Indian”.
(don’t get me started about the use of the word “squaw” in geography! Calling it “cunt mountain” and “cunt valley” for ten years or so, might cleanse the pallet a bit!)
The term is mostly Greek/Persian.
That would be Europeans, 6.000 BCE.
I agree and await eagerly that English speaking people stop using Roman terms for my people. Thank you.
This still doesn’t explain how people who use “Indian” to refer to subcontinental things “can’t be bothered to distinguish between brown people on opposite sides of the world.” In Canada we no longer use the word Indian to refer to Native or First Nations things or people, but we do use it to describe things and people from India. I’m sure the same is true for many in the US, and I’m not sure how that makes our use of “Indian” hugely lazy. But if you’re suggesting that “Indian” is a word that only subcontinental Asians should be allowed to use, I’m not sure what everyone else should use to describe them.
The swastika’s use as a Buddhist symbol extends well beyond India, and has for a long time.
Well, what I thought of as an interesting blog post from a blog with a known reputation and scholarly posters.
Sorry to bring interesting information to your attention.
