Dan Snyder’s effort to curry favor with Native Americans through his Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation may be backfiring.
The Native Indian Gaming Association, a nonprofit with 184 Indian nations as members pulled its sponsorship from a charity golf tournament this weekend because the Redskins’ Foundation was involved in the same event. The organization said it questioned whether Snyder was sincere about wanting to aid Native Americans and didn’t want to be involved in a charade.
“It’s a blatant attempt to try to buy out the issue,” Ernest Stevens, chairman of the Native Indian Gaming Association, told USA Today.
The Native Indian Gaming Association is not alone in wanting to distance itself from the Redskins. The Navajo Nation Council voted to oppose the use of the Washington Redskins name last week, and James Anaya, a United Nations expert on indigenous people’s rights, urged Snyder to “consider that the term ‘redskin’ for many is inextricably linked to a history of suffering and dispossession.”
There may be nothing Snyder can do to convince anyone that he’s sincerely listening to Native Americans. Nothing other than changing the Redskins’ name.