Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) Social media exploded Wednesday with the news that the Washington Redskins had bowed to years of pressure to change the team’s name, and, starting in fall 2018, would be known as the Washington RedHawks. But, it was not to be, as it was soon revealed to be the work of a Native American activist group known as Rising Heart.
The group not only put together an official-looking website for the team, www.washingtonredhawks.com, following the exact template of the team’s current website, but also assembled articles that appeared to be running on the websites of the Washington Post, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and others.
There's an elaborate hoax going around about the Washington Redskins changing their name to the Redhawks. Someone made fake WaPo, ESPN, SI and Bleacher Report pages for it (the urls are all wrong) pic.twitter.com/KoadRYdwjX
— Eric Morrow (@morroweric) December 13, 2017
People soon realized the web addresses were suspect, and finally the team itself put out a statement confirming the websites are “fraudulent,” and saying ‘Redskins’ will remain the team’s name “for the future.”
“We thought that this would be something that we could re-imagine – a Washington football team name that all community members can get behind,” organizer Nicholas Courtney, a member of the Makah Tribe, told WMAL.
He described their efforts as a “culture jam” – a strategic effort to spread the news through pre-planned sources and outlets. They had been working on it for three months before Wednesday’s release.
Threats had already started coming in from Redskins fans, Courtney said, but others had a positive reaction, some even complimenting the new logo and jerseys.
“I thought that that was really cool, because it eases them into re-imagining a team that an entire community can get behind,” he said.
The group is not worried about potential litigation, Courtney said, as the effort has the support of “larger Native organizations and resources that they have available to us.”
The Redskins have fought to keep their name, despite lawsuits and mounting pressure from the Native American population that say the name is a racial slur. The team had its trademark revoked by the federal government, but a recent Supreme Court case surrounding an Asian-American band named The Slants found trademarks cannot be revoked on grounds that the name is offensive or disparaging.
Courtney, a Seattle native, hoped Wednesday’s efforts led to a little more awareness among football fans.
“I’m a Seahawks fan,” he said. “I could see myself in the future being a Washington football team supporter, but I could never support a team that uses logo and imagery referring to Native peoples, and especially the r-word.”
Copyright 2017 WMAL.com All Rights Reserved. (Photo: washingtonredhawks.com)
