Amanda Blackhorse is a social worker and member of the
Navajo people who is known for her work as an
activist on the
Washington Redskins name controversy
The Washington Redskins name controversy involved the name and logo previously used by the Washington Commanders, a National Football League (NFL) franchise located in the Washington metropolitan area. In the 1960s, the team's longtime nameâ ...
. She is the lead plaintiff in ''Blackhorse v. Pro-Football, Inc.''
Biography
As of 2014, Blackhorse is a psychiatric
social worker in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà :nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the on ...
. She has also worked at
Arizona State Hospital
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, AlÄ á¹£onak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
.
While a student at the
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. T ...
, she attended a game between the Washington Redskins and the Kansas City Chiefs at
Arrowhead Stadium and reported:
At an NFL game in Kansas City, "people yelled, 'Go back to your reservation!' 'We won, you lost, get over it!' 'Go get drunk!' And so many different slurs … I've experienced racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
in my lifetime, but to see it outwardly, and nobody did anything?"
Blackhorse v. Pro-Football, Inc.
Blackhorse is the lead plaintiff in ''Blackhorse v. Pro-Football, Inc.'', which seeks to revoke trademark protection of the term "
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...
". The case was actually began by Susan Harjo, but Blackhorse is known by its rekindled efforts because her name is alphabetically first out of the new plaintiffs. The
USPTO
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...
rejected an application to register "Redskins Hog Rinds" because it "consists of or includes matter which may disparage or bring into contempt or disrepute persons, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols". Since 1992, the USPTO has rejected eleven applications for other trademarks that included the word
Redskin
Redskin is a slang term for Native Americans in the United States and First Nations in Canada. The term ''redskin'' underwent pejoration through the 19th to early 20th centuries and in contemporary dictionaries of American English it is lab ...
s, based on the same reasons. Some of the applications were made by Pro-Football, Inc., including "Washington Redskins Cheerleaders".
On June 18, 2014, the
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) is an administrative tribunal within the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The TTAB is empowered to determine the right to register a trademark. It has no authority to determine the righ ...
(TTAB) of the
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alex ...
(USPTO) voted to cancel the six trademarks held by the team in a two to one decision that held that the term "redskins" is disparaging to a "substantial composite of Native Americans", and this is demonstrated "by the near complete drop-off in usage of 'redskins' as a reference to Native Americans beginning in the 1960s." In a press release the trademark attorney for the team stated that they were confident that they would once again prevail on appeal, and that today's decision will make no difference in the continued use of the Redskins name.
Plaintiff Amanda Blackhorse said in an interview, "We’ve been through this process for eight years now. We will continue to fight. And, you know, this is not the end for us."
In June 2017 the Supreme Court ruled that the provision of the trademark law barring disparaging names was an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech. That case (
Matal v. Tam
''Matal v. Tam'', 582 U.S. ___ (2017) (previously known as ''Lee v. Tam'') is a Supreme Court of the United States case that affirmed unanimously the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the provisions of the ...
) involved the denial of a trademark for an Asian-American rock band, "The Slants". Both the Native American petitioners and the Justice Department have withdrawn from any further litigation now that the Supreme Court has rendered the legal issue moot. Blackhorse called the decision disheartening after 11 years of litigation. While it may be legal for the team to use the name, she said, that doesn't make it right.
The Washington Redskins would later drop their name in 2020, briefly becoming known as the Washington Football Team before adopting the name
Washington Commanders
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) E ...
in 2022, thus ending the debate.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackhorse, Amanda
Living people
1982 births
21st-century Native Americans
American civil rights activists
Women civil rights activists
American social workers
American women activists
Female Native American leaders
Haskell Indian Nations University alumni
George Warren Brown School of Social Work alumni
Journalists from Arizona
Native American activists
Native American journalists
Native American leaders
Navajo people
People from Navajo County, Arizona
University of Kansas alumni
21st-century Native American women
Native American people from Arizona