The Onion Takes the Redskins Name Debate to a New Level

The controversy over the Washington Redskins' name escalated on Monday in a piece from The Onion provocatively titled "Redskins’ Kike Owner Refuses to Change Team’s Offensive Name." The five-sentence story and its anti-Semitic language are so startling that journalists and bloggers aren't even sure how to react.

In its efforts to turn the debate on its head, the piece refers to the Jewish owner of the Washington football team, Daniel Snyder, as a "hook-nosed kike" and "shifty-eyed hebe." (For example: "'The Redskins represent 81 years of great history and tradition, and it’s a source of pride for our fans,' said the hook-nosed kike, stressing that the team’s insulting moniker is 'absolutely not a racial slur by any means.'") Those anti-Semitic words are written in satire, but still, they appear pretty shocking. Which is, of course, the point. Would Snyder really defend the Redskins name if he were Native American? This story fits into other similarly focused attacks on the name that imagine how Redskins supporters like Snyder would feel if the team name were another minority. Consider, for example, the San Francisco Chinamen or the New York Jews, as