[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 168 (Wednesday, October 23, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H8391]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         NFL SHOULD END RACIST EXPLOITATION OF NATIVE AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Minnesota (Ms. McCollum) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, the National Football League is 
celebrating its 100th anniversary, and its popularity and economic 
success is indisputable. Millions of fans watched the NFL last year, 
and the league's 32 teams split more than $16 billion in revenue.
  One team, the Washington franchise, exploits a racist slur and a 
racist mascot that insults and demeans Native Americans to help 
generate profits for the NFL owners.
  In the 21st century, we should rightly condemn the use of racial 
slurs that disparage African Americans, Latinos, Asians, or anyone. And 
there is no doubt about it. The term ``redskin,'' in fact, was used in 
conjunction with scalp hunting in the 19th century.
  In 1863, in Winona, Minnesota, my home State, a newspaper, the Winona 
Daily Republican, printed an announcement: ``The State reward for dead 
Indians has been increased to $200 for every redskin sent to purgatory. 
This sum is more than the dead bodies of all the Indians east of the 
Red River are worth.''
  A news story published in the Atchison Daily Champion in Atchison, 
Kansas, on October 9, 1985, told the stories of settlers' ``hunt for 
redskins, with a view of obtaining their scalps.''
  No doubt about it, this is a negative word. This is a slur. So it is 
remarkable that the NFL commissioners and owners continue to sanction 
the racist and shameful use of the term ``redskin'' to describe Native 
Americans and then profit from it.
  There are millions of Native Americans in this country whose 
ancestors endured forced removal from their lands, suppression of their 
culture, and state-sponsored campaigns of ethnic cleansing.
  The NFL racist mascot mocks this painful history.
  Tomorrow night, the Washington team and its racist mascot will be in 
Minnesota, the home of 11 proud sovereign Tribal nations. I will be 
joining Tribal leaders, elected officials, and other Minnesotans 
gathering outside the stadium. We will be speaking out against racism 
and exploitation. We will stand proudly with our Native American 
brothers and sisters. With one voice, we will be calling on the NFL to 
end its racist exploitation of Native Americans and to do one thing: 
Change the mascot.

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