Cowboys vs Redskins — On Sport & Conquest, and Race & Rivalry in America
“Muslims suck!”
(An NFL fan sentiment shouted during a moment of silence after Paris attack)
“I was very disappointed with whoever the fan was who made a comment that I thought was really inappropriate during the moment of silence, it’s that kind of prejudicial ideology that I think puts us in the position that we’re in today as a world.”
(Aaron Rodgers, Quarterback Green Bay Packers)
The Cowboys and the Redskins are the two most iconic names of American football. Why? Perhaps what Aaron Rodgers mentioned at a recent press conference about “prejudicial ideology” is the best way to think about answering. What is the significance between a cowboy against a redskin and football in the American imagination? When were these two ideals of conquest and sport memorialized into America’s thorny white-skinned colonial history? Who best represents change of the imperial cultural, religious, and political domination or strategic solidarity with brown, black and red skinned people? Thinking comparatively about these questions helps shed light on why cowboys vs redskins is so iconic in the American imagination.
There was a significant turning point and convergence between sport and global politics in the year 1890. In this year both rules of sport and conquest changed. The white-skinned cowboy conquest of the western frontier by 1890 was complete. And the year closed with the murder of the final champion of the redskin tradition — Sitting Bull. In that year American football became distinct with the down-and-distance rules that replaced the “mob” style or rugby-like football. A line of scrimmage, snap from center, and pass blocking were new rules that were literally game changers of American football. The conquest of the cowboy over the redskin along with these football rule changes put America in the quarterback “position that we’re in today as a world.”
America’s expansionist cowboys would now look for a new line of scrimmage beyond the eastern and western shores. Blocking demonstrated and facilitated domestic control with an aggressive police force on the front line. Did you know that President Theodore Roosevelt intervened and pleaded with the Ivy League schools to think anew about the rules of the game of football. So, Yale’s Walter Camp and others brilliantly introduced legal blocking and forward passing to limit violent collisions that led to injuries and sometimes death. This removal of a rugby style violent confrontation from pole to pole was replaced with a measured four downs and 10 yards of distance goal setting. Likewise, in 1890 when the domestic cowboys massacred the redskins at Wounded Knee, slaughtered the Lakota Ghost Dancers, and murdered Sitting Bull, the conquest game changed. It changed to measured limited violent collisions abroad in the world with gradual land grabs. Cowboys represented in the American imagination a hero for the whiteskins and a terror for the redskins.
Joel W. Martin in his article Indians, Contact, and Colonialism in the Deep South: Themes for a Postcolonial History of American Religion explained:
“By the end of the nineteenth century, the military conquest of the continent was completed, images of Indians had replaced real Indians in the public imagination…”
Martin argues it was the year 1890 that marks this iconic turning point. He says, “it was the moment when “Anglo-Saxon” colonialism reached its apogee in North America.” It was the year of white ascendancy and American triumphalism. Not only is this significant in time, but it also marks a spatial turn in that the North American whiteskins vanquished the traditional redskin Native Americans and brokered a new relationship to land. It shows how legislators can change the rules of the game; for example, the 1887 Allotment Act, Martin says, was “designed to pulverize Indian land holdings and obliterate their cultural identity.”
Moreover, Reconstructionist legislation established Jim Crow during this time. In fact, in the 1890s lynching of black skinned people peaked to several hundred a year. It was exactly December 15, 1890 when Sitting Bull’s murder by police set the new ideological line of scrimmage of manifest destiny and the police force signified the legal forward pass, as Martin explains:
“Finally, 1890, the year of Sitting Bull’s murder, represents the year when the American continental empire was consolidated, the “frontier” closed. From this date onward, American expansionist would have to look elsewhere to satisfy land-grabbing impulses…”
Cowboys vs Redskins for these reasons are iconic American symbols of a turning point and a convergence of sport and conquest. Since 1890 several hundred United States bases have opened and closed, but today the US still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad.
“Muslims suck!” — as a sentiment after the horrific Paris attacks is understandable. My hope, after the overwhelming emotional shock in the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, is that we can arrive at a mature place beyond bombastic rhetoric and hate speech. Similar religious and secular sentiments motivated the cowboys against a traditional and aboriginal people like the vanquished redskins. The moral courage of the white-skinned quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, who is not a Cowboy but a Packer, demonstrates the type of leader we need today — the type that do not sit and remain silent while others suffer — those who call out from the snap behind the center and bravely and publicly hurl truth at falsehood against “that kind of prejudicial ideology that …puts us in the position that we’re in today as a world.”
