Redskins, Who Should Get To Keep Their Racist Name, Still Jerks For Running Fake Grassroots Support Website

As we've previously discussed the trademark issues surrounding the Washington Redskins team name, and as I've personally flip-flopped on the question like I was running for public office to represent salmon on a dry dock, none of that coverage has ever called into question that the team is run by some number of jackasses. Dan Snyder, who owns the team, has gone out of his way to attack all kinds of media and blogs over coverage of the team and its antics. Well, back on the name of the team, even if they got a big gift from a court in a related lawsuit, it turns out the team has been engaging in a bit of subterfuge to try to drum up support for the mascot as well. But, thanks in part to an errant tweet, the team has been found out. Fans of the team and its name may recognize the Twitter account "Redskins Facts", which purports to be a grassroots conglomeration of fans that back the name of the team.

Redskins Facts is supposedly a grassroots organization aiming to create support for a mascot named after scalping Native Americans. However, it is run by a PR firm, not fans, and the team has carefully skirted around precisely designating it as independent. As SBNation points out, the Washington Post fact-checked the site’s claims and found them misleading. While Washington was in a close game with Chicago, some suspicious tweeting went down. These two tweets, sent from two purportedly different organizations that have no affiliation with each other, look pretty similar. Given the exact similarities between the two tweets, this is almost certainly a copy/paste job.

pic.twitter.com/j1nJm4Rx6H

— Dan Steinberg (@dcsportsbog) December 13, 2015

Oops. While many have long suspected that the PR firm running the Twitter account had been hired to do so by the team, because there isn't another logical explanation that would make any sense, this copy/paste job between the team's official account and the "Redskins Facts" account seems to confirm it quite nicely. The Redskins Facts website, indeed, has an entire "About Us" section that is nothing short of a series of misleading claims that would probably be more appropriately called lies. So, even as the legal side of things is going to end up leaving the Redskins to trademark its dumb, racist team name, the fact that the team pulls these kinds of antics ought not be lost in the meantime. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story