P
erhaps the high point of this came with the May 3 broadcast of the Snyder-produced TV show Redskins Nation. The program featured a guest introduced as Chief Dodson, who was described in a press release written up by the Redskins PR department after the taping as "a full-blooded American Inuit chief originally from the Aleutian Tribes of Alaska" who "represents more than 700 remaining tribe members."
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Dodson added that all the Indians he knows are fine with "redskins" even in a non-football context.
"It's actually a term of endearment that we would refer to each other as," Dodson said. "When we were on the reservation, we'd call each other, 'Hey, what's up, redskin?' We'd nickname it and call each other 'Skins.' We respected each other with that term. … It's not degrading in one bit."
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It turns out that the "full-blooded American Inuit chief" is neither a full-blooded American Inuit nor a chief in any formal sense of the term.
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What of Dodson's contention that Aleuts and/or Inuits regularly use "redskin" as a term of endearment? "I have never called anybody 'redskin,'" Eningowuk said. "Nobody I know has ever called me 'redskin.' I have never heard any Inuit call somebody 'redskin.'"