Washington's NFL Team Name Again, Or How The Least We Can Do Is Far Too Much

The N-Word Hat Would Sell More

I keep not wanting to talk about the sad little end game involved with DC's loathsome NFL team name, and yet, well, no. With this week's simple but potent release of what similar cities with slur names would look like (see right), I made the great mistake of reading an Internet comment section... and lo, the depths of aggrievement!

There's a great Louis CK monologue (in that, well, most Louis CK monologues are great) in which he notes, with more than a little teeth in the eye, about the unspeakable crap that we complain about as White People Problems. From having to press 1 for English to the lack of quality to your wifi to the entire healthcare kerfluffle of having to pay for things that don't personally benefit you (gosh, I have no idea what that's like, what with the perpetual wars of choice and oil company subsidies that I'm convinced that all of my tax dollars go to), the Internet seems to exist to just give voice to the people who can't let anything go. And the idea that the Washington team could possibly be called something else, or that Stanford students aren't having as much fun in rooting for their football team without calling them by their old name, it so completely fries the ass. More so than, well, anything.

You see, having to change your language or your brain pattern for anything is just The Last Straw. It opens up Slippery Slopes everywhere the eye can see, provokes a future dystopia where all team names are so unbearable as to make sports magically not fun anymore, and are just part and parcel of the vast left wing conspiracy to make sure you never experience joy again. (A small note to my friends on the other side: I appreciate that you think so highly of the competence of my team; it's *adorable*. But seriously, death panels? You're the guys with all of the guns, and if we were somehow your all-powerful world overlords, no one would have gasoline to drive with or get killed on the roads, you'd have to eat your veggies all the time, and you'd probably live longer, not shorter. Also, we'd be completely down with the booze, drugs and sex, so you might be happier. Assuming you'd be OK with the gay. You are OK with that, right? Damn. Oh well. We were so close to being benevolent world overlords! Or just, more likely, quarantining you people in flyover land and doing our very best not to think about you, and to accommodate your college-age children when they tear out of your area at their first possible opportunity.)

Or... maybe, just per chance, you are chancre sores on the face of progress on this one, on the wrong side of history and personal finance, and that Washington's team name will die with Snyder, or when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says so.

Let's recap.

If you like Washington's team name, buy it and wear it. Seriously. Buy it like there is no tomorrow, because there isn't. Make sure that you spend all of your disposable income making this the #1 shirt in the NFL, so that Snyder can wave checks in the faces of those who think that he's just a spoiled pus bag who never learned to play nicely with others.

Because, well, otherwise? And when they do actually change it and sell stuff hand over fist to young generations or people who want to root for the team, but have always been stopped by the baggage that you say doesn't exist? It's gonna look bad. Not as bad as the current logo, but bad nonetheless.

So, since in all likelihood the money is not with you, and neither is the historical precedent...

There's only one way this thing ends, and it's not with bitter old racists getting their way. (You generally don't, by the way. Spoiler Alert!)

Kind of like, well, some other things, but that's a whole 'nother post...