By Jack Limpert
Distaste for writing or speaking the name of Washington’s football team continues to grow. Phil Simms, the most respected NFL analyst on television, won’t say it, and more and more newspapers won’t print it. (The Washington Post’s editorial page has banned it but the rest of the paper continues to use it because it is the team’s legal and official name.)
Some of the antipathy is because many see the name as a racial slur, some of it because it seems a dumb name—former team owner George Preston Marshall, back in 1933, picked it because Braves and Indians already were taken. And maybe some of the antipathy is because the team seems to have lost much of its cachet—year after year the players underperform and owner Dan Snyder is becoming one of the least admired owners in the history of professional sports.
Here’s a replay of a conversation about difficult words I had in June 2013 with fellow journalist Mike Feinsilber. In it, Mike said:
“Many Redskin fans see nothing wrong in the name of the Washington Redskins. But, judging by the long campaign to get the team’s owners to change that name, it is clear that Native Americans—and not only Native Americans—consider the term ‘Redskins’ to be obnoxious. Call that PC if you want to, but political correctness ain’t as offensive as political incorrectness. Err on the side of the Golden Rule is my advice.”
Here’s the full conversation, starting with an email I sent Mike about words that can cause controversy and sometimes get a journalist fired:
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Mike
In my first year as a newspaper editor, I was in Warren, Michigan, a suburb just north of Detroit. I only had wire service experience and to help me learn how to put out a newspaper I hired a retired Detroit News editor, John McManus, as a part-timer. It was 1964, and John was in his late 60s.
We had a story about a local Catholic church and it was critical of a popular priest in a smart-ass kind of way. John looked at it and said, “Let me give you some advice. Don’t piss off the Catholics or the Jews.” What he didn’t like was the style of the piece. John would have been okay with a critical piece on a Catholic priest as long the piece had real substance and the writer wasn’t trying to show off. The story got rewritten.
In the mid 70s I was at The Washingtonian and had met a bright, young guy who was editing Boston magazine. We were about to have our annual meeting of city magazine editors when the Pope died. In the issue of Boston that just had come out, a piece made satirical fun of the Cardinal of Boston. Local TV showed the Cardinal at Logan Airport about to take off to Rome to select a new Pope. By the time the Cardinal landed, the editor was out of a job. Enough Catholics were angry at the magazine that the owner didn’t hesitate. I remember thinking: John McManus was right.
In the 1980s I worked with a very smart writer, a Brit, who wanted to do a piece about life inside the Washington Post newsroom. He contended that Post editors were at the mercy of various interest groups inside the paper—then including African-Americans, women, and gays as well as Catholics and Jews—who had veto power over what could be published. I passed on that one—it would have created talk but seemed the wrong way to take on the issue. What seemed to the Brit as kowtowing to interest groups also could be seen as a newspaper, long dominated by white males, beginning to listen more to groups that deserved to be heard.
The question is whether writing a post about all this is getting out on thin ice. A lot of Washingtonians have decided not to talk about any of these groups except in the safest possible way. They’ve seen enough people get in trouble by saying something clever or funny—or too candid.
Jack
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Jack
I would broaden McManus’s advice to: Be super-cautious about antagonizing any group, especially any ethnic, religious, national or even geographic group. Making fun of people is thin-ice stuff. News writers are more likely to shrug off criticism than other people, maybe because they think what they’ve written is just today’s story and gone tomorrow. But people read what is in the paper about themselves as etched in stone and in memory and recallable forever from archives. And they’re right. People never forget something uncomforting about themselves that made its way into print. I know lots of Southerners who are irked by what they see as belittling of Southerners. If you’re a Northerner and you call a Southerner a “good ol’ boy,” you might get a faceful of fist.
Oldtimers might recall when Molly used to say: “Tain’t funny, McGee.” And she was right.
Reading Leo Rosten for my last post made me aware of how many words in Yiddish make light of Jews. It is okay for members of the tribe to criticize the tribe, but only in the confines of the tribe. Some comedians whose mode is to laugh at groups are given a pass. The rest of us aren’t. Smart politicians, before they open their mouths, ask themselves, “How would this look in print?” Writers have to ask themselves, “How would the group I’m writing about take this if I put it in print?” Sometimes its newsworthiness compels you to put it in print, but at the least be aware of what you’re doing and what the consequences might be.
I think my point is made by the sensitivity toward derogatory group names. Many Redskin fans see nothing wrong in the name of the Washington Redskins. But, judging by the long campaign to get the team’s owners to change that name, it is clear that Native Americans—and not only Native Americans—consider the term “Redskins” to be obnoxious. Call that PC if you want to, but political correctness ain’t as offensive as political incorrectness. Err on the side of the Golden Rule is my advice.
Mike
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Mike
This weekend the Food Network fired Paula Deen, one of its most popular personalities, for using the “n” word. Deen is a white woman from the South. On the same weekend the July issue of The Washingtonian arrived, featuring a six-page article about Wale, an African-American the story called “DC’s most famous rapper.” The piece is by Edward G. Robinson III, also an African-American, and here’s the lead of his story:
Wale is amped. He’s pacing. Smiling. Talking with his hands. Dreadlocks swinging. From out of nowhere, he’s come up with an idea so brilliant he can hardly contain himself. “Niggas going to think I’m slightly losing my mind,” he says.
Jack
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Jack
Robinson makes my point: Members of a group are under fewer constraints when writing about other members than outsiders are.
His story also illustrates the importance of a good lead: It compels the reader to read on.
Mike
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