Carl Hitchens - tracking the self …
Carl Hitchens - tracking the self …
2013
Only RGIII can make the Redskins change their name. Here’s why he won’t. — Mike Wise, Washington Post
Mike Wise has some gall to lay all of his moral self-righteousness on the back of RGIII. Intimating at the end of his piece that there is something lacking in Robert Griffin, because he has not stepped up to the plate as a champion of Native American causes in crusading to change his Washington Redskins football team’s name — January 11, Washington Post.
In the lyrical words of Aretha Franklin, Who’s zooming who, Mike?
Wise suggests that this young, talented athlete falls far from the same tree occupied by Jim Brown, Arthur Ashe, Muhammad Ali, and Curt Flood. Aside from the fact that he is only 22 and just beginning his life, much less his career, why should this issue alone be Griffin's cross to bear for acceptance as a worthy, decent man—one who stands for something other than money and fame. If I remember correctly, Jim Brown spent 14 years in the NFL, before retiring and becoming known as a social/political activist. Both Ashe and Muhammad Ali were established champions before taking on the "establishment."
As far as Native Americans go, why does Mike Wise think that comments on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 2007 are the litmus test for the social issues that any individual must first embrace, if he or she is going to be a person of consequence. Might not Wise have polled Native people in the northeastern United State to whom the name "Redskin" was first applied—Algonquian peoples, in particular the Lenape (Delaware) and Nanticoke (like myself)—originally referring to their vermilion face and body paint, and in time becoming a pejorative term? Did Wise consider checking in with us on our opinion of RGIII and his character?
Maybe Wise could visit The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Indian Tribe (Bridgeton, NJ 08301) or the Nanticoke Indian Tribe (Millsboro, Delaware) [my cousins] and do some real, comprehensive reporting on Native Americans, instead of some sensationalistic, self-aggrandizing piece at the expense of a young man he only knows by personal assumptions of today's athletes.
To finish off his demolition of Griffin’s moral fiber, Wise concludes that Instead of Alis, Browns, Ashes or Floods, who do we have? Only RGIII — a young man with a pocketful of sponsorships.
Having no regard for Griffin—with so much on his table, as team leader with a career-jeopardizing injury—Sanctifying Mike exploits him in the most disrespectful way in the name of Native People's exploitation.
And: Only Mike Wise can change his own journalistic stripes. Here's why he won't: Character degradation sells newspapers.
Carl
Who's Zooming Who
1/13/13