How Awful is the Washington Epithets Owner Dan Snyder - In Addition to Mismanaging a Storied NFL Franchise

He Thinks He Can Swoop Down in His Private Jet and Buy Off Native Americans Offended by His Team’s Name

Most of the future is difficult to predict, get 10% of one’s forecasts correct and one is hailed a visionary.  But some things in the future can be predicted with relative certainty.  At some time the professional team in Washington D. C. will drop its racially charged name that offends Native Americans and others, just as Miami University and Stanford University have done.  It is only a matter of time, and reaching the limit of insentivity and stubbornness of the team’s owner.

That owner, Dan Snyder made billions in the private sector, although given his subsequent actions in owning the Washington team it is hard to see that he has enough managerial skills to successfully operate a hot dog stand.  Mr. Snyder is a man who believes things can be accomplished solely with money, and has used his to obtain over the hill players whose salaries and skills are greatly inflated, and to obtain celebrity coaches.  The result - Washington will finish a dismal season near the bottom of the league, again,  and not have its high draft choice which it traded away.

As far as the controversy over the name of the team, Mr. Snyder apparently thinks by showing up at a few Reservations in his sleek, expensive private jet he can somehow bond with the poverty stricken areas.

Hope arrived in a private jet. By the time the aircraft with the Washington Redskins’ Indian-head logo on its tail landed in New Mexico, the tribal council of the Pueblo of Zuni was ready to greet its prominent visitor.    

         

Daniel Snyder, the owner of one of the NFL’s most profitable football franchises, had asked to see firsthand the struggles of the tribe living amid red-hued mesas. To do that, he needed to see this: A cracked indoor swimming pool that had teemed with children and the elderly before it was condemned about three years ago. A swath of reservation land that had been set aside for hotels and restaurants that were never built because the funding didn’t match the dream. A wellness center where a Zumba class was about to start — one way the community is fighting an alarming diabetes rate.

Yep, drop in to a low income area in a private jet,  that will show the folks how much you understand their plight.  And drop in to a Native American communit with an offensive symbol of them on the plans, that will show the folks how much you understand their plight.  As for the problem with the team name, Mr. Snyder obviously feels he can buy a solution, just as he thinks the solution to every problem is to buy off the people.

The team could soon make a financial gesture to address some of these problems, including selling popcorn from a South Dakota tribe at the games. The move, like the name debate itself, promises to draw praise and criticism from the community that has the most at stake: Native Americans.

Now obviously the huge socio-economic problems of the Native American communities take precedence over the controversy of the name of the Washington franchise in the NFL.  This story though is not about that, it is about the ignorance and arrogance and hostility of a man who cannot understand why his money cannot buy success and acquiescence to his desire to preserve bigotry.

Yeah, sell popcorn made by Native Americans at the game, that will solve everything.