President Barack Obama indicated that he may support efforts to get the Washington Redskins to change their nickname, saying that if he owned the Redskins he would “think about changing” the team name.
“I don’t know whether our attachment to a particular name should override the real legitimate concerns that people have about these things,” Obama told The Associated Press on Friday.
Obama said the Redskins name–and others like it–offend “a sizable group of people” and noted that Native Americans “feel pretty strongly” about such mascots.
According to The Associated Press, “opponents of the Redskins nickname also plan to hold a protest Monday outside the NFL’s fall meeting in Washington” and lawmakers have written to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and introduced legislation seeking a name change even though nearly 80% of Americans, in a national AP-Gfk poll conducted in April, support the name.
As Breitbart News reported, though Redskins owner Dan Snyder said he would “NEVER” change the team’s name, Goodell recently indicated that the NFL had to listen to concerns about the name even if just “one person is offended.”