Descendants of John Two Guns White Calf, a Native American chief who inspired the now-retired logo of the Washington Commanders football team (previously known as the Redskins), have called for his return to NFL events.
“The fans want him back and we want him back,” Thomas White Calf, a great nephew of the celebrated early-20th-century Blackfeet tribe leader, told Fox News last week.
“Our ancestor was the most famous and most photographed native in history,” he added, speaking on the phone alongside his mother, Delphine White Calf. “I’m proud of him. The Blackfeet are proud of him.”
The conservative news network interviewed the family after they met Montana Senator Steve Daines – a vocal critic of the 2020 decision to rebrand the franchise. The lawmaker brought up what he believes to be a historic wrong in Congress and in the media on multiple occasions.
“Make no mistake, this logo was inspired and envisioned … as a tribute to Native Americans. It is not a caricature. It is a depiction of pride and strength. Of courage and honor,” he said at a Senate subcommittee hearing in May.
Blackie Wetzel, another Blackfeet tribal leader, is credited for creating the logo in 1971. The next year, the Washington Redskins NFL franchise adopted it.
Both the name and the mascot were retired in 2020, against the backdrop of racial protest following the death of George Floyd. Major investors and shareholders put pressure on the team’s top sponsors, claiming that the branding promoted negative stereotypes about Native Americans.
The management caved in, though the Redskins were renamed as the Commanders only two years later.
A spokesman for the team told Fox News that it is collaborating with Senator Daines “to honor the legacy of our team’s heritage and the Native American community,” but had no intention of reviving the old logo.
The news outlet pinned the blame for the naming controversy on the non-profit National Congress of American Indians. Among other things, it seeks to eradicate what it perceives as inappropriate mascots in sports and complained against the Redskins in 2013 in a 29-page report on the issue.
“Today’s harmful ‘Indian’ mascots are very much an extension of the commercialization of race such as black face and African-American stereotypes,” the document claimed.