Is the name "Washington Redskins" in any way insulting, derogatory or offensive?

[Recursion]

12. Dan Snyder is more concerned with keeping an offensive mascot than recruiting an offensive line

I bring that up because he's shown time and time again that as long as the franchise remains a cash cow, he won't even do basic stuff like competently run a football team, let alone address social concerns about the name. Hell, this is the man who manages to lose money on a water park. How do you manage to do that?

Anyways, I hate to keep beating this dead horse, but a lot of people miss the history of the name. So, a rundown:

In 1932, some investors in Boston got together the money to buy the Newark Tornadoes, a defunct football team. They made a revenue sharing deal with the oldest baseball team in Boston, the Boston Braves, to use their stadium (it's now the soccer field in Boston University's west campus, though I think they may be building a dorm there now). As was the common practice then, they named the football team after the much more popular baseball team (see the New York Giants), in the hopes that baseball could add some visibility to the relatively unknown sport "gridiron foot ball".

In (this is from memory, so I may be off by a few years) 1934, professional racist and vicious scumbag George Preston Marshall -- a man who ended up leaving his fortune in his will to charity in 1970 with the stipulation that it could be used for no causes that involve racial integration -- bought the team. He tried to negotiate a better deal with the baseball Braves, failed, and decided to move the team instead to play with an upstart new baseball franchise in Boston, the "Red Sox" (ironically, named after a black team from Norfolk, VA). Since the "Braves" tie-in didn't make any more sense, but they didn't want to find a new logo, they chose "Redskins". It had nothing to do with a batting coach of alleged Cherokee origin (he wasn't). It had nothing to do with "honoring" anybody. It didn't even have anything intentionally to do with insulting anyone. It was a marketing decision, plain and simple, to tie in with the more established team to help sell merchandising. When the team left for DC in 1936 (and it's pretty well established this was Marshall's plan all along, despite his assurances to the contrary to Boston -- some aspects of professional sports never change), they kept the name (despite the fact that the Senators -- now the Minnesota Twins, not the Senators who are now the Texas Rangers -- were as established a brand as the Red Socks were).

I want to make this clear because proponents of the name seem to keep skipping this fact:

The name "Redskins" was chosen to capitalize on a stadium leasing relationship that has been defunct for almost 80 years at this point. Nothing more.

The name was not chosen as any sort of tie-in with the Dallas Cowboys -- the Dallas franchise wouldn't exist for another 30 years. But if it was changed for marketing reasons once, there's absolutely no reason it shouldn't be changed for marketing reasons again.

Now, personally I'd like to see the team named the Tornadoes again, just for the closure of the thing. Failing that, if we assume the Cowboys-Redskins rivalry has to stay marketable, there's nothing wrong with the Bandits, particularly given the Beltway aspect. For that matter, I always liked the name "DC Bullets" (they're now the much-pitied Washington Wizards of the NBA), but I know that would bother a lot of people. But it would still have a "Cowboys" tie-in.

But for that matter, why should the rivalry be reflected in the names? There's nothing in the names of the Eagles and Giants that makes it a rivalry. There's nothing in the name "Bills" that makes the team its own greatest enemy. Dallas and Washington will still be middling teams of the NFC who will generally fight each other for playoff berths. The rivalry is in the standings, not the names. And while we're on that subject, why should the NFL keep letting that be the biggest rivalry in the game? That sucks a lot of oxygen out of the rest of the NFC, and for that matter the AFC too. If they had more flexibility in promoting grudge matches, the league as a whole would win. But that kind of thinking rarely gets far in the leagues.

Anyways, this is just kind of my stump rant about the team. It's name should change. More and more news organizations should be pressured into referring to them as "Washington's football franchise" (there's motion that way in the Post -- that would be a huge win). Change the name. And then, for God's sake, stop overpaying for quarterbacks and recruit an offensive line to protect the ones you have.