Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) has been pushing the Washington Commanders NFL team to “restore” its former logo, which depicted a Native American, as it looks to find a new stadium.
In 2020, bowing to years of public pressure and sponsors’ skittishness, the Washington, D.C., team ditched its Redskins name, widely seen by Native American groups as a slur.
When it dropped that name, the Commanders also retired the logo used since the early 1970s: a drawing of a Native American in profile with two feathers in his hair, based on Chief Two Guns White Calf of Montana’s Blackfeet Nation.
Now, as the team tries to find a new stadium in the Washington area, it has been pressured by a Montana senator, Republican Steve Daines, to again use the logo in some way, despite its potential to revive a controversy that Native groups had hoped was dead and buried.
To aid his cause, Daines leveraged a popular bipartisan bill supported by both the team and District of Columbia officials that could help the city land a new stadium and bring the team back from the suburbs. He kept the legislation, which would let the District of Columbia revitalize and reuse the site of the shuttered and decaying Robert F. Kennedy Stadium,bottled up in committee for months until Nov. 20.
Daines said he’s only trying to right a wrong done to one of his constituents and the Blackfeet tribe when the logo was retired along with the old team name.
“We’ve had good discussions with the NFL and with the Commanders. There’s good-faith negotiations going forward that’s going to allow this logo to be used again. Perhaps revenues going to a foundation that could help Native Americans in sports and so forth,” Daines told Fox News on Nov. 20, after voting for the bill he’d been blocking.
Daines added that the logo’s cancellation in 2020 was a case of “woke gone wrong.”
“The irony [is] that they were canceling Native American culture as the [diversity, equity and inclusion] movement went way too far,” he said.
But the idea of using the logo again has drawn opposition from at least one high-profile Native group and is likely to raise the same questions about athletic team iconography and the representation of Indigenous people that the old name did.
“Native peoples are not mascots for sport and entertainment. It is impossible to heal from the decades of racism inflicted on us by way of the team’s fan traditions and former name if we must continue making this point,” Angel Charley, executive director of IllumiNative, a group focused on Indigenous issues, told HuffPost in a statement.
“The decision to change the name and mascot came after years of organizing from Native communities and allies and billions of dollars from investors in the #ChangeTheName movement. Going back on this commitment should be a non-starter.”
The National Congress of American Indians, the nation’s oldest advocacy group on Indigenous matters, has passed several resolutions condemning the old name and mascot specifically and praising the demise of similar ones used by high school and college teams.
“The use of the R-word as the name and mascot of the Washington National Football League team is offensive and hurtful to American Indian and Alaska Native people and causes direct, harmful effects on the physical and mental health and academic achievement of the American Indian and Alaska Native populations, particularly youth,” read a 2018 resolution from the group.
The NCAI did not return requests for comment on the potential use of the logo.
According to the Commanders, there’s no reason to worry the logo will return. There are no plans to bring it back, a team spokesperson told HuffPost on Wednesday.
By holding up the bill until he said there was movement on the logo front, Daines was able to take advantage of the calendar, Washington officials’ desire for a new stadium and the dwindling time the Commanders have to find a new home.
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, the former home of several Washington, D.C., sports teams, has been closed since 2019. The site is being discussed for redevelopment, including as a new NFL home for the Washington Commanders.
Aaron M. Sprecher via Getty Images
The bill returns administration of the RFK Stadium site from the National Parks Service back to the District of Columbia and specifically allows new uses for the land, including for housing and commercial development, which are banned under the current lease.
As one of the last big undeveloped areas in the city and with easy transportation by car or subway, district officials have long wanted the site back. After the committee vote, Mayor Muriel Bowser said she hoped to turn it into “a vibrant hub of affordable housing, world-class recreational facilities, green spaces, and economic opportunity for District residents and visitors alike.”
For the Commanders, it could solve the unsettled question of where its next home will be. The team currently plays in Northwest Stadium in a Maryland suburb east of Washington. But its lease expires in 2027, and Maryland, Virginia and the district have all made cases for being picked, hoping that landing the team and a new stadium would boost economic development.
Though the stadium issue has bounced around Congress for years with no action, the bill Daines initially blocked was approved by the House on a 348-55 tallyand in committee on a 17-2 vote, and is only a few steps from becoming law.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has not said whether he will bring the bill to a vote, and if it’s not passed in the next few weeks, the process will have to start all over again in a new Congress with a new president.
Daines said the logo has support among Blackfeet members and has pointed to the logo’s creator, Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, a Montana resident and member of the Blackfeet nation who was an NCAI president in the early 1960s.
“It is not a caricature. It is actually a depiction of Chief Two Guns White Calf, who was a great leader that the Blackfeet tribe looks up to,” Daines told HuffPost after the committee vote on Nov. 20.
Daines said he dropped his opposition to the stadium bill after Wetzel’s grandson Don said there was progress in talks between him and the Commanders about the logo, though Daines and the team have not specifically said what may be done with it. In voting for the bill, Daines said he hoped Don Wetzel, the tribe and the team could find a way to “restore the logo to a place of honor and prominence.”
The team created a special room in Northwest Stadium to recognize the logo and its creator and conceivably could do that again in any new location. It might also allow the logo to be used in memorabilia for team alumni from the years when the logo was in use.
Whether that will be enough to satisfy Don Wetzel or Daines, though, is unclear.
Daines said the logo should be seen as distinct from the old team name. “There’s no discussion about bringing back the name, but there is strong support for bringing back the logo,” he told us.
IlumiNative’s Charley, however, said the two were inextricably linked.
“We cannot pretend the former logo exists in a vacuum,” she said.
“It will be forever tied to the team’s former name, which is undoubtedly a racial slur weaponized against Native peoples for generations. To utilize this logo is to once again deploy the slur and attempt to dehumanize us.”
