AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
Kudos to Josh Harris and the NFL Washington Commanders ownership group for agreeing to no longer erase the iconic Blackfoot chief logo from the team’s history, including video archives.
It’s a healthy step away from the Stalinesque drive to blot out any and all record of the past that’s inconvenient to the ideologues who dominate our cultural institutions.
Team ownership yielded to cancel culture in 2020, dropping the Redskins name and memory-holing the franchise’s iconic symbol.
Last summer, a DC TV station was called out for blurring or removing the logo in archival footage and photographs of the team, as well as in viewer-submitted content.
Credit goes to Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who called the historical revisionism a “case of woke gone wrong” and refused to support legislation involving a new stadium for the Commanders until the team agreed to restore this important part of its legacy.
Native American artist Walter “Blackie” Wetzel used Blackfoot chief John Two Guns White Calf as the inspiration for the classic side-profile Indian-head design, which represented the NFL franchise from 1972 to 2020.
In fact, it was Wetzel’s idea to replace the team’s “R” logo with his tribute to the nation’s indigenous populations and their traditions.
But decades later, along came the mainly white, overwhelmingly privileged woke crowd to browbeat the team into erasing its heritage — even as the Blackfeet (based in Montana and represented by Daines) rejected their paternalism.
This is one small defeat for America’s home-grown Stalinists; may many more follow.