I think the most offensive part of the term Redskin is how it generalizes and demeans an entire race of people. When Columbus arrived North America wasn't one nation of Native Americans. It was made up of 1000's of independent society's sharing one thing in common: the color of their skin. They sure as hell WEREN'T referring to each other as Redskins, since the only people they had ever seen had the same color of skin.
It's extremely offensive for a race of people that have been subjected to genocide, religious persecution, legislative acts intended to erase their cultural identity, broken promises, theft of their homelands, rape, murder....Now we take all of these individual nations and lump them all into one category, the redskins, which is a derogatory term: and plaster a cartoon character to represent that racist generalization on the side of the helmet.
Every piece of legislation regarding the Native Americans from 1830(Indian Removal Act) to 1956(Indian Relocation Act) was designed to remove Native Americans from their homelands(resources) and erase their cultural identity, replacing it with a cultural identity similar to the caucasians that just stold their land. Native Americans were forced to become Christians. They were forced to become capatalists.
After we erase their culture/identity we reward them with alcoholism, poverty, and a tiny piece of the most undesirable lands in North America. We generalize every individual native american with a derogatory term and use that term and a cartoon picture to sell football tickets in our nations capitol?
It sickens me to see how Native Americans have been treated and still are treated today.