I'm Sure Daniel Snyder Will Be Happy To Hear That Josh Norman Doesn't Find The Term 'Redskins' Offensive

WashingtonPost- Well, maybe he is. Norman is on the cover of ESPN the Magazine’s latest issue — which focuses on NFL defenses — and the story by my pal Kevin Van Valkenburg has enough choice Norman moments to create four or five different buzzy Internet headlines. Let’s just look at one notable excerpt.
“Spend any time around Norman and it’s easy to understand how he became one of the NFL’s most interesting, and polarizing, players. Riding in an Uber past the Eiffel Tower and during hours of idle conversation over the next two days, he offers thoughts on everything and everyone, including NFL commissioner Roger Goodell (“Horrible. He’s straight horrible.”), the league’s crackdown on big hits (“What happened to us? Society is so soft.”) and Washington’s nickname (“Redskins is not offensive to me. I’m part Native American on both my mom’s and my dad’s side. It’s kind of a funny thing, though. A redskin playing for the Redskins.”).

​

Welp, that'll about do it. Sorry Native Americans but you might as well hit the tanning bed, reinvest in some hatchets and war paint, and embrace your ever-so-stereotypical past because it's pretty clear the fight against the term 'Redskins ' has reached it's conclusion. I know, I know. It doesn't seem right to me either, but it's one of your own - well, one fraction of your own - that doesn't deem the name offensive and you can't really argue with that. Especially when that person plays for the 'Redskins' AND is such a perfect portrayal of what it means to be American Indian in this country. He might look like your average black man on the outside (largely because he is), but his blood runs as red as the oft-exaggerated skin color of your marginalized forefather's and that is obviously enough to make him the authority on slurs directed towards them.

Seriously though, Josh Norman thinking he has the right to refer to himself as a 'Redskin' in a non-football sense is so ridiculously offensive that it actual renders the social acceptability of the word a secondary argument. Imagine if my white ass had one black grandparent and went around checking 'African American' on standardized tests and declaring that I didn't find the 'N' word discriminatory? It would be World War motherfucking III. In fact, that plays even more to the fact that Native Americans have caught such a raw deal in this country. Even random African American athletes - that have surely faced their fair share of racism themselves - won't even acknowledge the prejudice that they face. Not only that, but one of them - whose great grandfather knocked up an Apache or some shit - feels comfortable giving the green light on specific slurs? Obviously Josh Norman is all about shock value so you can take the genuineness of this quote with a grain of salt, but it's actually just as misguided as refusing to change the name of your sports team that doubles as a ethnic epithet. I least he's fitting in with his new organization, I guess...