OK, here comes a question that might have crossed others’ minds as well as my own.
The Washington football team is now the Washington Commanders. It’s a fine name. I won’t quibble over it. What about any references to the team’s former name, such as when they played in previous Super Bowls?
For the record, I am glad the team ditched its former name, which I consider to be an epithet aimed at Native Americans. I won’t even use it here, just to be politically correct.
However, all references I have seen to Washington’s past football exploits in the Super Bowl, where it made five appearances dating back to the 1973 game against the Miami Dolphins, uses the franchise’s former name.
Will sportscasters, therefore, be allowed to use that name when talking about the team’s past? Or must they dance around it the way I am doing it now?
Just askin’.
They should use it when referring to the past. The ESPN story that I read never mentioned it, which is ridiculous – not good journalism. It reminds me of Winston in “1984” wiping out any reference to the past.
That’s easy: the 1973 NBA championship was won by the New York Knicks. If the team name at that time had been the “New York (plural of N-word),” would a journalist or a sports writer of today still state the official team name from that time, or would they do what I did and use the term “N-word”?
Clearly they would not speak the entirety of the team name of that time. ‘Same should be the case for the former name of the Washington football team, as it is a racial slur on a par with the N-word.
It’s easy if you think of it in those terms, eh?