Fox News defends "Redskins"

Faux News defends the Redskins' response to the 50 senators' letters about the offensive team name:

Megyn Kelly Likens Request To Change Redskins Name To Curtailing ‘Speech Rights, Basically’

By Ellen[T]he lone voice advocating for the name change was Simon Moya-Smith, of Indian Country Today. He explained that the term “Redskin” is a “dictionary-defined slur.” He added, “So I don’t know where the debate is.”

I guess he didn’t know that Fox News is the network where insulting minorities is viewed as legitimate opinion not to be squelched.

Kelly asked, “You don’t see any distinction what’s in somebody’s head and what’s in somebody’s heart? Do you think that the team owner of the Redskins is a racist man?”

She showed no such skepticism with Shapiro when he condescendingly lectured Native Americans–and suggested they have no business complaining about anyone else but their own shiftless selves:The political games that are being played here are absolutely ridiculous. The fact is that 49% of Native American kids were not graduating high school. As of 2010, only three were going on to college, only 10% of those were graduating in four years. And the Senate is focused on the name of the Washington Redskins–as though that’s the biggest problem facing the Native American community? The name of the Washington Redskins is about a hundred on the list of issues facing Native American communities today.Ah, the old "Don't you have more important things to worry about?" argument. As if people don't deal with multiple issues every moment of their lives.

'Unless We Interrupt Your Sports, You're Not Paying Attention to Us'According to host Megyn Kelly, if most people think something isn't racist, then it's not a problem. This is a strange argument that would invalidate every improvement in the public dialogue concerning race, since African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and American Indians are all minority groups. Ben Shapiro of "media watchdog" website truthrevolt.org said that this is not the most important issue facing Native Americans, therefore they cannot complain about it. Sportscaster Jim Gray, reading from notes we'd like to see, shared the utter falsehood that the NCAI designed the Washington Redskins logo. Wait, what? Shapiro quoted the U.S. Constitution, which is always a smart move on Fox News even if it's not relevant, and he and Kelly concurred that the real issue here is, as usual, that our darn government is too big for its britches. All three had stopped making sense well before the end of the segment--Moya-Smith's kicker about interrupting sports was accurate when it comes to football and the sport of cable news punditry."Term of respect"?!

Fox News tries again:

Fox Panelist: Washington Redskins Name Is 'A Term Of Respect' (VIDEO)

By Catherine ThompsonFifty senators wrote a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Wednesday calling for the removal of the "racial slur" from the name of Washington's football team. Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, however, said he viewed the team's name as a "term of respect" for Native Americans.

"It's a historical name. But I don't think there's a lot of people--first of all, when is the last time you heard people use that as a racial slur?" he asked. "It's not used commonly at all as a racial slur. It's used historically as a term of respect to people. And I think that's how we should remember that."Comment:  "It's used historically as a term of respect to people"? False. Extensive documentation shows it's been used as an ethnic slur or vulgarism for 100 to 150 years, at least.

Most racial slurs aren't used "commonly." Their shock value comes from their rarity. So that part of the argument is false too.

It would be easy to prove whether "redskins" is a term of respect to Native Americans. Simply call them "redskins" to their faces and see how they respond. If they're happy, it's good. If not, it's bad.

How about it, Redskins supporters? Would you call a Native a "redskin" to his or her face? Answer the question, cowards: yes or no?!

Then there's this feeble attempt to court Harry Reid:

Redskins Invite Harry Reid to Game After Demands for Name Change