Fox Contributor: ‘Redskins’ Used Historically as a ‘Term of Respect’
On Monday, Fox’s Outnumbered took on the controversy surrounding the NFL’s Washington Redskins, which reached a new level last week when 50 senators signed a letter urging the league to remove the “racial slur” from the team’s name. Of the five hosts, it was the one man, Pete Hegseth, who argued most aggressively in favor of keeping the name in place, saying it is actually a “term of respect” for Native Americans.
Host Harris Faulkner began by asking the simple question of whether the NFL should consider changing the team’s name given the long list of people and organizations who have come out saying they find it offensive. Her co-hosts mostly thought it was an issue the free market should decide, with Katie Pavlich calling the Senate’s involvement in the controversy a “joke.”
“This is ridiculous, the market has spoke own this,” Hegseth said. “If people didn’t want to attend games, if people wanted to boycott, they could.” He also mentioned an often-cited — and often-disputed — poll showing that 90% of Native Americans do not view “redskins” as a racial slur. While Hegseth described it as a year-old CBS poll, he was likely referring to this 2004 surgery from the Annenberg Center.
Another reason why Hegseth said he does not believe the name should change is that the term “redskins” is not a “commonly-used” racial slur in 2014. “When is the last time you heard people use that as a racial slur?” he asked. “It’s not used commonly at all as a racial slur. It’s used historically for the purposes of — as a term of respect to people. And I think that’s how we should remember that.”
Watch video below, via Fox News:
[h/t TPM]
[Photo via screengrab]
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