FCC Mulls Banning Redskins Name

[Dr.3D]

Why the big deal over a certain kind of peanut?

 

[JK/SEA]

i have 'red hair', and i find that term offensive...its not really 'red' as 'red' is defined...its on my drivers license as 'red hair'...bastards.

 

[cajuncocoa]

Why the big deal over a certain kind of peanut?

Thank you for calling this to our attention. We must change their name, too.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Well. I'll say this. I'm more native American than I am foreigner. In fact, I grew up literally a short walk from the Cherokee National Forest. That said, the use of the term Redskins doesn't really bother me.

Of course, we're not really red, you know.

 

[milgram]

The FCC only regulates language on the networks, right?

 

[Suzanimal]

DOJ intervenes in Redskins court fight

At issue is a ruling by the Patent and Trademark Office that stripped the team of several trademarks, calling the name "Redskins" offensive to Native Americans.

The Justice Department’s notice, filed Friday and posted publicly by the National Law Journal, doesn’t take a stance over whether the team’s trademarked name and logo should be canceled. But the DOJ will defend the statute that influenced that ruling, which bars companies from registering certain offensive trademarks.
In June, the Patent Office canceled six of the team’s trademarks that include the term “Redskins” for flouting that law. The ruling found that five Native American plaintiffs proved that the term was disparaging, giving the Patent Office grounds to cancel it.

The Washington Redskins appealed the decision in August to a federal judge, arguing that the law and its application violates the team’s First Amendment right to free speech.

The team’s statement, posted on the National Football League’s website, said that “the team has been unfairly deprived of its valuable and long-held intellectual property rights in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”

The team still holds the trademarks until the end of the appeals process. Law professors told The Hill after the June ruling that even if the ruling stands, the team won’t lose all of its protections, specifically rights to its logo without the term “Redskins.” That would allow the team to challenge any unauthorized merchandizing that used the logo.

A fact sheet released with the June ruling also says that the Patent Office decision wouldn’t force the team to change its name or stop using the trademarks and that other protections could apply even if the trademark is canceled.

Because the team plays just outside the nation's capital, the trademark controversy is a contentious issue for politicians.

Attorney General Eric Holder said in July on ABC’s “This Week” that the name “ought to be changed” and is “offensive.”

President Obama told The Associated Press in 2013 that he’d “think about changing” the name if he owned the team.

Virginia Senate candidate Ed Gillespie (R), though, released an advertisement supporting the team’s name during his failed 2014 bid to replace Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/229071-doj-intervenes-in-redskins-trademark-case
The Justice Department is stepping into a court fight over whether the Washington Redskins can legally trademark their name.

 

[Weston White]

Truly, what is so derogative about the word “redskin”? It does not mean a scalped Indian’s head (as some would incorrectly suggested in their desperation to formulate an argument); it simply references an American Indian, the term ‘redskin’, albeit since becoming a bit pejorative (i.e., but only through the political correctness of progressivism—gone too far), derives from the fact that Indians used to paint their faces red during Colonial America. The fact the an American sports team had named their sports team after Indians the same as say the Oilers, 49ers, Cowboys, Bills, Raiders, Bears, Patriots, Broncos, Colts, Stingrays, Eagles, Saints, etc., it done not as an insult but in honor of those named. It is intended to honor the fighting spirit of the object or mascot being personified, idolized, or fetishized.

Redskin is no more derogatory than the use of such militarized terms as leatherneck, jarhead, squid, or seal. To be called such is worn as a badge-of-honor by those deserving to be labeled such.

While, if we are to traverse such an atrophic route why not also red-flag (please excuse the pun) the Kanas City Chiefs—clearly their name taken in context with their logo intends to depict that not even an Indian chief is capable of forging an accurate arrowhead; the Cleveland Browns—isn’t the name itself overtly slanderous towards blacks; or how about the Cleveland Indians MLB team—if not simply for their opted name then for their official logo, Chief Wahoo, which caricaturizes Indians as nothing more than goofy looking “redskins”:

...And there you have it. Absolutely ridiculous.