Protests of the Washington Redskins name are following the team around the country. This past weekend in Denver, protestors got up close and personal with the team.
As the Redskins team bus approached Sports Authority Field at Mile High, some of the estimated hundred-plus protestors approached the bus, bearing signs and seeking to get attention for their cause.
“We caused those players on the buses to have to stop," Glenn Morris of the American Indian Movement of Colorado told the Washington Post. "Those players had to stop and take notice that there are Native people in Denver, Colorado, who are opposed to what they’re doing ... And we were saying to them as predominantly African American players, you should understand the history of this team. And you should understand your own personal role in continuing racism through this team. And we hope that we piqued their conscience and got them to think a little bit about that, and their own personal role in this national debate.”
It's a good strategy, approaching the players themselves; if Robert Griffin III were to come out in favor of a name change, that would change the dynamic overnight.
Still, the players weren't engaging the protest, at least not this time around. “They didn’t open the windows and they were surrounded by police cars with their lights and sirens,” Morris said. “And so they didn’t comment. But we could see them through the windows, that they had their faces pressed up against the windows, watching what was going on. We know that they took notice. And so that was our intention, was to get into the heads of the players and the coaching staff, to start to work from inside out to put some pressure on the ownership and the management team of the Washington football team to change this racist mascot.”
Protestors have said they will continue the effort at bringing notice to their cause. This protest was larger than a recent one in Green Bay, they contended, and an upcoming one in Minneapolis will be larger still.
All right, you know what to do from here. The comments section is now open for business.
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