The Navajo Code Talkers beg to differ.
Via USA Today:
A letter castigating the team name of the Washington pro football club and signed by 61 religious leaders mostly from the Washington region is scheduled to be sent to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and team owner Daniel Snyder on Thursday, according to the minister who is the driving force behind it.
The letter, dated Dec. 5, casts the roiling national controversy over the team name as a moral issue and includes signatures of leaders from a range of faith communities including Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, United Church of Christ, AME, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim.
“The derogatory term ‘redskin’ offends many Native Americans and others in this country,” the letter says. “This word, defined in the dictionary as a slur, should not be publicly marketed and celebrated in America, which is built on the ideals of respect and inclusion.”
Rev. Graylan Hagler, who helped write the letter and recruit the signatories, said clergy who signed on agreed they would also talk about the issue from their pulpits. Hagler hopes their sermons will ignite a religiously based grassroots campaign.
“If you use that word about a group of people, you characterize them as less than human,” Hagler told USA TODAY Sports. “You have stripped them of their humanity and taken away the likeness of God that is within all of us.”