On Wednesday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that, if one person is offended by the Redskins name, the league must listen.
On Sunday, the league apparently will be listening.
Via Meg Jones of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, members of the Oneida Nation will assemble at the Oneida Nation Gate at Lambeau Field to express concerns regarding the Redskins name.
“The warrior image is not the image we want to be portrayed,” Brandon Stevens, an Oneida Nation elected official, told Jones. “We’ve moved past the time of Western encroachment and how the West was won, and that’s where all the images are taken from — when we were a valiant enemy.”
Also, members of the Wisconsin Indian Education Association’s Mascot and Logo Task Force are expected to assemble outside Lambeau Field to protest the name.
And there goes the knee-jerk argument that the only people offended by the name Redskins are people who don’t have red skin.
The efforts take on extra significance because, as best we can recall, it’s the first organized attempt at an NFL game to speak out against the Redskins name. Which means it’s the kind of thing that can spread to Oakland (September 29), Dallas (October 13), Denver (October 27), Minnesota (November 7), Philly (November 17), Atlanta (December 15), and New York (December 29).
At some point, protests could pop up at FedEx Field, where the team will play at least seven more games this season.