Rooting For Potato Heads

SOMEHOW YOU GET THE SENSE that the controversy of the century, the naming or renaming of the Washington Redskins, is soon going to come to fruition, and the name will either be changed, or it wont be, once and for all. At least, we can hope. Native nations are on the warpath, and the European interlopers,for the most part, persist in their actions and beliefs, unabated by considerations other than their own immediate. As always. Why change something to which we have become accustomed, and with which we feel quite comfortable? Damn it, this is football, this is tradition! Conservatism at its purest, which, in this case, represents about eighty four percent of the general population. An astute corporate attorney, who roots for the Dallas Cowboys (another insulting name, though we don't think of it like that, the term "cowboy" originated as a slur against ranch hands, cattle drovers), is certain that the name will be changed, but that it will have nothing to do with racism or political correctness. It will be changed because so doing will automatically create a new and wide open market for sale of, shall we say, paraphernalia. New jerseys, new helmets, new sweatshirts and T shirts, billions of potential revenue, for somebody. Meanwhile, the much maligned organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which should but somehow does not inspire universal admiration, has the answer. Keep the team's name the same, but change the logo, so that the name "redkins" means a redskinned potato, not a human being. They, PETA, even have a logo drawn up which looks remarkably similar to the traditional one, wherein a potato on a plate replaces the image of aboriginal head and helmet, with a long sprig of grain on the side of the plate where feathers now lay. A clever solution to a sticky little problem, the perfect answer, which means that throughout America it will be ridiculed and dismissed summarily. Hell, PETA'S just a bunch of wacky liberals anyway. The Washington Redskins have existed since the nineteen thirties, and nary a murmer has been raised about the insulting nickname until quite recently. Taking a look at the movies and other cultural artifacts from that era; not a trace of ethnic sensitivity is to be seen. Cultural sensitivity, concern for the feelings of everyone, redardless of race, color, or creed, is evidently a new invention in America, one which has not yet, even now, been embraced by a significant part of the electorate. It seems that even the injured party did not become substantially injured until just recently. For those of us who understand that the name really is an insult, and always has been, but have no desire to change it, we are perfectly free, when watching monday night football, to think of ourselves as rooting for a perfectly harmless and quite politically correct group of potato heads.