The list of non-NFL teams using the name “Redskins” could soon be resembling a countdown.
According to WIVB-TV, a high school in Lancaster, New York is taking up the question of whether a label used for 67 years should be continued.
As an initial step, a committee has been formed to consider whether the name should change.
“No decisions have been made at this time regarding the mascot,” Lancaster High School officials said in a statement. “This school year, we will begin to have an exploratory dialogue about the use of the mascot, educating ourselves regarding the issues, involving multiple stakeholders and points of view.”
It will be locally polarizing and controversial, but the effort shows that as time passes more and more people are realizing that the name, when considered in isolation, raises real questions about its ongoing viability.
Against this developing background, Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has said he’ll never change the name. Maybe Snyder won’t, but his successor or his successor’s successor or his successor’s successor’s successor surely will.
Right or wrong and regardless of where anyone stands on this, most of the people populating this planet in 100 years will look back at this time in history and say, “Why did it take so long for people to figure out that the name needed to change?”