Matthew McConaughey and Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III after a practice at Redskins Park in June (Eric Vucci/Associated Press)
When Your Dallas Cowboys and the football franchise from the Washington, D.C. area last squared off at Jerryworld in October 2013, listeners of the Cowboys’ flagship radio station were greeted by the Oneida Indian Nation’s “Change the Mascot” spot. This time time around, those opposed to the moniker “Redskins” have something a little more tangible planned: a protest in front of AT&T Stadium a few hours before Monday Night Football kicks off.
Dallas’ Yolanda Blue Horse, a member of the Lakota Nation, sends word of the rally scheduled for 3 p.m. Monday, and says she hopes it will be better attended than last year’s protest attended by some two dozen people joining the chorus trying to convince Washington owner Dan Snyder to change the team’s name. Blue Horse is hoping for 100 — around the same number that showed up earlier this month when Washington went to Arizona to play the Cardinals. Blue Horse says Monday’s rally, being led by the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, is being staged in conjunction with the larger Change the Mascot effort, which has long condemned the Washington mascot as a “racial slur” and a “racial epithet.”
“When we all stand together as one, we also honor those before us and those to come after us,” says Blue Horse in a prepared statement. “The continued use of this negative word is not only derogatory, but it is offensive and we demand that the owner, Dan Snyder, stop using this racist word to promote his football organization.”
For those who might have forgotten, Snyder has the full support of fellow owner Jerry Jones, who said last year that “it would be a real mistake — a real mistake — to think that Dan, who is Jewish, has a lack of sensitivity regarding somebody’s feelings.”
And in case you missed it earlier this week, Uvalde-born Lincoln pitchman Matthew McConaughey told GQ he’s way more than just all right, all right, all right with the Redskins name. Says David Wooderson channeling his inner Rustin Cohle: “I love the emblem. I dig it. It gives me a little fire and some oomph. But now that it’s in the court of public opinion, it’s going to change. I wish it wouldn’t, but it will.”