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The Kansas City Star Avoids Using The Word “Redskins” Because It’s A Racial Epithet

by Dylan Murphy | 12:13 pm, October 2nd, 2012

The Kansas City Star has quite the policy in place for its readers: Due to the perceived racist nature of the term “Redskins,” the paper does its best not to refer to the Washington Redskins by its nickname. The majority of mentions, according to USA Today, come from wire service stories.

Many are more than baffled by this policy, so the Kansas City Star’s public editor went on the offensive defensive.

“‘I remain unconvinced by every argument I’ve ever heard that the name is not a racial epithet, plain and simple,’ he wrote. ‘And I’ll even break my usual rule about commenting on issues outside The Star’s journalism to say that I find it inconceivable that the NFL still allows such a patently offensive name and mascot to represent the league in 2012.

‘I almost always come down on the side of publishing a word when it’s the crux of a debate (as I did here in the first paragraph). It isn’t healthy for discourse to pretend any words or thoughts don’t exist.

‘But I see no compelling reason for any publisher to reprint an egregiously offensive term as a casual matter of course.’”

This isn’t the first time there’s been controversy over the use of Native American terms for team names. The twist here, however, is slightly askew, as it hinges more on the tone of derisive name calling more than anything else.

And yes, Kansas City’s football team is nicknamed the Chiefs. Though, apparently it’s a reference to former mayor Harold “The Chief” Bartle. Still, we can’t ignore the smidgen of hypocrisy. Maybe it’s just displaced rage at Dan Snyder – that wouldn’t be so hard to believe.

[Kansas City Star, via USA Today]

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Anonymous

Clown, I hate self-righteous liberal whites falling all over themselves.
Elron McKenzie

“Still, we can’t ignore the smidgen of hypocrisy.”

Dylan, honestly. Where is the hypocrisy? You can’t tell any difference between “Chiefs” and “Redskins”? Red-skin, get it? Their helmets have the profile and skin color of an American Indian on them.There’s nothing racial about the word “Chiefs”(do you think of an Indian when someone talks about the fire department’s chief?), but when you’re referring to a group of people by their skin color, that’s called racism–and it IS insensitive as hell.