Michael McBride remembers being called a "redskin" when he was a child, and he says it was never meant to be descriptive or complimentary.
"The way it's used, it ridicules a race of people. It hurts," McBride said. "My skin is not red; no other Indian's skin is red. . . . It is a derogatory and denigrating term."And it doesn't matter whether it's being hurled at an Indian child by a white playmate, blazoned across the jerseys of a National Football League team or stamped into a Utah license plate, he said.
"The feeling I get from it," McBride said, "is anger."
So, it was with a feeling of gratitude that McBride learned on Friday that the Utah Supreme Court had reversed a State Tax Commission decision allowing three vanity plates using variations of the term: "REDSKIN," "REDSKNS," and "RDSKIN."
McBride and another American Indian, Jay Brummett, asked the Tax Commission in late 1996 to revoke the three vanity plates. But the commission refused on a 3-1 vote. Individual commissioners based their votes on whether they were personally offended by
the terms, whether the "general public" might find them offensive and, in the lone dissent, whether "some people" might find them offensive.
Salt Lake attorney Brian M. Barnard then appealed to the Utah Supreme Court, arguing that the commission had applied an incorrect standard of review.
The justices agreed. In a 3-2 ruling, they said the commission should have based its decision on whether an "objective, reasonable person" would find the terms offensive. The majority sent the case back to the commission with a clear message that that type of person would, indeed, be offended by the use of the word redskin.
Writing for the majority, Justice Leonard Russon said the court could have easily disposed of the case itself but chose to return it to the Tax Commission in the interest of judicial restraint. Chief Justice Richard Howe and Justice Michael Zimmerman concurred, with Zimmerman commenting that it would be "extremely difficult' for a reasonable person not to find the term offensive.
The two justices who dissented, Christine Durham and I. Daniel Stewart, said they would have simply reversed the commission ruling and immediately revoked the vanity plates without remanding the case to the commission.
"(McBride and Brummett) introduced overwhelming evidence showing that the term 'redskin' is derogatory and profane, that it expresses contempt and ridicule, and that it references the historical domination of a defined class of persons based on race and ethnic heritage," Durham wrote.
Kathy Jackson, the owner of the "REDSKIN" license plate, said she was disappointed by the ruling and by what she considers a misinterpretation of the facts.
A rabid Washington Redskins fan, Jackson said her license plate is an expression of her support of a football team, not a racial slur.
"It's not meant to be offensive," she said. "It's my team. I'm originally from there (Maryland), and I've always been a Redskin."
But McBride said neither Jackson's intentions nor the use of the term by a football team based in the nation's capital makes it OK. He recalled a televised game where a group of Washington fans in their "hog" regalia had brought along a pig that they had painted red and capped with an Indian headdress.
"What's a 12-year-old kid who sees that going to think?" McBride said. "That's not a positive image."
McBride, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux, said the term redskin dates back to the 18th century when white authorities placed a bounty on "red skins."
Durham cited that history as well, saying the "obscene racial slur" associated with it is a horrifying reminder of the "genocidal practice." She noted that the Washington Redskins team has been under fire for years to change its name. Even the District of Columbia City Council passed a resolution urging a change, she said.
While no one can force a privately owned football team to remove an offensive name, public officials have an obligation to ensure that terms like "redskin" are not used with the "imprimatur" of the state, Durham said.
Barnard said his reading of the Supreme Court ruling would indicate that the Tax Commission has little choice but to revoke the offending plates. However, he added that he long ago gave up trying to guess how courts or bureaucracies might rule.
Of the four tax commissioners who originally voted on the REDSKIN plates, only Joe B. Pacheco Jr. is still on the panel, and his was the lone dissent. Those who voted to allow the plates were Val Oveson, who last year was appointed to be taxpayer advocate for the IRS in the Washington Redskins' hometown; Alice Shearer, who died in 1997; and Roger Tew, an attorney who returned to private practice.
They were replaced by Richard B. McKeown, who ran for Salt Lake mayor four years ago; Pam Hendrickson, a former Sevier County assessor; and R. Bruce Johnson, an attorney and CPA formerly in private practice.