Our View: The Quechans are no rubes. They said no to the money, no to the branding and no to selling their souls.


It will be a long time before all of the indignities heaped upon American Indians are squared, but last week a tribe on the Arizona-California line got a little back with a glorious statement about a people and their pride.

They told the Washington Redskins football team to take their hush money and punt it where the sun don't shine.

Whether the smart guys in D.C. got the message is doubtful, but what seems in little doubt is what they think of Native Americans.

They must think they are rubes.

What else to conclude from the bumptious overtures of the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation to the Fort Yuma Quechan (Kwatsan) Tribe.

RELATED: Mascot protest outside Chase Field

The foundation is the charity arm of Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, who finds himself more deeply embroiled than ever in the naming controversy of his team.

Snyder has a huge problem. Millions of Americans regard his team name a racist throwback that is jarring to the modern ear and an insult to indigenous cultures.

Snyder's new foundation has crisscrossed the country offering money and support to tribal peoples in what suspiciously looks like an effort to curry favor and silence objections.

As told by The Republic's Megan Finnerty, Snyder's foundation went to Fort Yuma to apparently offer a "blank check" for the Quechan Memorial Skatepark, a project the tribe has aspired to build to help solve the problem of youth suicides.

And what a production the smart guys put on.

The foundation's executive director, himself a Cherokee Indian (nice touch), made tribal council members shift in their seats with all his swagger.

"He said he was a proud Redskin and had been a proud Redskin since he was a child," recounted Kenrick Escalanti, president of Kwatsan Media Inc., which has been working to raise money for the skate park.

"That's when the council sped up the meeting. They just wanted to wrap things up really quickly and said, basically, 'We appreciate your time.' "

While they were in town, the smart guys whipped out their iPads and showed tribal members renderings of the elaborate skate park they could build them.

"When you looked at it," Escalanti said, "it wasn't just a park, it was corporate branding. It was all in burgundy and gold (Washington team colors), and the logo was all over it.

"And they tried to brush it off and say, 'These are just renderings.' But every rendering looked the same."

The Quechans are no rubes. They said no to the money, no to the branding and no to selling their souls to preserve an NFL team name.

Snyder may find other takers of his largesse. But he won't get the Quechans.

They don't hail to the Redskins.

Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1jRg5VL