Last week, I was in a room at San Francisco State University named for Richard Oakes. (Please resist asking, “Richard Who?”)
It’s amazing how even some young people at the school, and even some regular folks in the city I asked at random, had no idea who Oakes was.
I’ll get to that, shortly. But first, this lack of awareness for Oakes struck me as a failure of a generation of diversity in higher ed.
It also explained to me why our society continues to struggle over the Redskin name.
Last week, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s declared “Redskin” disparaging and lifted protections on the use of the name. It sets up a potential free-for-all. Hard to imagine Washington team owner Dan Snyder and other NFL owners wanting to share their profits from the merchandising of racism with others, especially counterfeiters.
For an unabashed capitalist like Snyder there can be nothing pleasurable or good about “unprotected” Redskin use. If doing the morally right thing isn’t enough, other NFL owners could use lost profits to serve as the fig leaf that forces Snyder into red-faced submission soon.
But if that doesn’t work, then I guess this thing really is likely to go all the way. Snyder seems hell-bent on turning himself into the General Custer of the racist mascot issue. It’s a losing proposition, historically, as we all know.
