Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder correctly pointed out Monday that the controversy over his team name is prolonged by Internet writers who “need clicks” while real American Indian issues are never talked about on the cocktail circuit.
“You know, it’s sort of fun to talk about the name of our football team, because it gets some attention for some of the people that write it, that need clicks, or what have you,” Snyder said in an afternoon radio interview from training camp on ESPN 980. “But reality is, no one ever talks about what’s going on on reservations, the fact that they have such high unemployment rates, health care issues, education issues, environmental issues, lack of water, lack of electricity.”
“No one wants to talk about that stuff, because it’s not cocktail, chit-chat-talk, it’s a real-life need, real-life issues. And I think they don’t want to focus on that, and I dedicated an effort to do that,” Snyder said.
Disputed Oneida Indian Nation leader Ray Halbritter, the chief of the anti-Redskins campaign, quickly fired back with a statement accusing Snyder of “living in a bigoted billionaire bubble.” (RELATED: Anti-Redskins Campaigner Runs Abusive Tribal Government).
The Daily Caller previously cited genealogical documents to prove that Halbritter, who schmoozed with President Obama at a 2012 fundraiser, is not a legitimate member of the tribe he leads. Halbritter later called our reporting “bigotry.”
Halbritter’s anti-Redskins cause has gained support from such cultural arbiters as Bob Costas, who failed to reveal that his company NBC Sports had a business contract in place with Halbritter’s casino empire before Costas delivered a halftime editorial disparaging the Redskins name last season. (RELATED: Costas’ Network Partnered With Oneida Casino Prior To Redskins Rant).
President Obama, who once featured the Redskins name in a campaign video, even weighed in by saying that if he was the Redskins owner he would consider changing the team name. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor that Snyder will eventually be “forced” to change the team name. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in June stripped the team of six federal trademarks to drive down revenue on Redskins merchandise.
But no entity has done more to push this scandal than the liberal online media. The Huffington Post has an entire page on its site titled “Redskins Name Controversy,” where HuffPo readers can get nice and outraged before clicking over to such HuffPo op-eds as “It Shoulda Been a Giant Step for Womankind Too,” about the moon landing.
The Internet has clearly been a driving force in the controversy over the team name, which originated in 1933 when the Redskins still played in Boston.
In 2004, the year before the Huffington Post whined its way into existence, a former New York Times reporter looked at his own poll results and was surprised to find that 90 percent of American Indians had no problem with the Redskins name.