Growing up as a member of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, Brian Howard attended an elementary school that was within the boundaries of Phoenix and beyond those of his reservation. There, in the third grade, he was first called redskin.
Did the white classmate intend it as a term of endearment, akin to buddy? Or was it used as a verbal fist, intended to hurt and to sting?
“A slur,” said Mr. Howard, 28, a legislative associate for the National Congress of American Indians. “Oh, yeah. Yes.”
But the widespread acceptance of the term as a pejorative — “now considered by many to be an offensive term,” according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary — has apparently been tossed into linguistic uncertainty by a recent Washington Post poll that centers on the name of a certain Washington-based professional football team.