Here's the segment as it aired, which followed a long and uncharacteristic explanatory preamble by host Jon Stewart [which is cut off in this YouTube version of the clip].



We learned later that some of the individuals who participated in the piece -- they didn’t enjoy the experience. It’s something that happens a lot less than you would think,” Stewart said. “But we take the complaint seriously. We generally don’t want people who participate in the show to have a bad experience. We work very hard to find real people who have real beliefs and want to express those beliefs on television, and we work hard to make sure that the gist of those beliefs are represented accurately, albeit sometimes comedically on our program." “If we find out that someone in a piece was intentionally misled or if their comments were intentionally misrepresented, we do not air that piece. We would not air that piece," he added. "So that being said, I hope you enjoy the following piece.”

Basically the setup of the piece was that The Daily Show created two panels, and each would have a chance to make their case about the name. While talking to the team fans Jason Jones asked them:



"Would you say all of this stuff directly to a Native American?”

Of course, they expected the answer would be "Yes" and then the other panel would enter looking scornful. What happened next is only shown quickly and without audio in the final cut, but based on reports from the Washington Post , all hell busted lose.

Strangely, this Washington Post story, as well as others from Huffington Post, Time, Gawker, Uproxx, Buzzfeed and CBS which all reported on the claims by the team fans who complained of being "misled," "threatened," and "ambushed" during the filming of the segment never bothered to actually talk to all the Native Americans who were there and get their full perspective. So one of them documented the rest of what happened in the Missoula Independent where it was revealed that several Native Americans on the following day were threatened, bullied and intimated by Washington fans who told them during their tailgate that "I'll fucking cut you," "Go the Fuck Home" [Which would be America, right?] and "Thanks for letting us use your name!" (When it's not their name, and they really aren't letting anyone do anything with it. Quite the opposite.)

So in the end just who was truly "intimidating" and "threatening" to whom?

But first let's let the mostly white people have their say about how they felt, which according to WaPo was that they were promised there wouldn't be a "confrontation" with Native Americans in the piece, and after there was the fans had an attorney contact The Daily Show producers to have the consent forms they had previously signed rescinded.



“As those agreements were procured under false pretenses, they are NULL AND VOID,” Petersen wrote to Polidoro. “The purpose of this letter is to inform you that my clients DO NOT CONSENT to the use of their image or any of their statements by The Daily Show, either for a show about the Washington Redskins or any other subject.”

“They told us they were going to have a fan panel, and, at some other time, they were going to do a panel with Native Americans,” said Dortch, 38. “So I said back, ‘Just to clarify, specifically, we’re not doing a cross-panel discussion right?’ The producer said, ‘Yeah, right. That would be too serious for Comedy Central.’ ”

It's interesting to me that theyto them. It's interesting that they were—before even going on air—actuallyand what they might have to really say about what the name means to their face.So there's your "promise" right there. The producer deflected the question with sarcasm because if he didn't it would blow the entire "surprise" portion of the planned piece. Too serious? Anyone recall that the Chappelle Show used to be on Comedy Central too?

And they had reason to be concerned.

Especially when that confrontation did occur—they were outnumbered by 8 to 4. For a moment, and only just a moment noting that one of the pro-team panel was also Black, they found out what it was really like to be in the minority and to face a hostile majority that really doesn't see things they way that you do.

They really, really weren't ready for that. Not even.

In a previous story the WaPo let the pro-team panel describe what occurred as they faced off.



The encounter at a Dupont Circle hotel was so tense that an Alexandria fan said she left in tears and felt so threatened that she later called the police. She has told “The Daily Show” to leave her out of the segment but doesn’t know whether the producers will comply. “This goes way beyond mocking. Poking fun is one thing, but that’s not what happened,” said Kelli O’Dell, 56, a former teacher who lives in Alexandria and doesn’t watch the show regularly. “It was disingenuous. The Native Americans accused me of things that were so wrong. I felt in danger. I didn’t consent to that. I am going to be defamed.”

“I said to them, ‘You sound like an alcoholic, someone who’s in denial and who doesn’t want to believe what they’re doing is not right,’ ” recalled Blackhorse, who said the interaction with fans left her feeling “dehumanized.” “They don’t see anything wrong with it. ­ . . . That’s what the owner [Dan Snyder] is feeding their fans.” O’Dell said she felt trapped. “I was told that I was ‘psychologically damaging Native American children,’ and every time we tried to say something, we got cut off,” she said.

into being

So what did the Native Americans actually say that made Ms. O'Dell so upset? Well, this.Well, considering the fact that (as far as many Native Americans are concerned) the word "Redskins" was actually a term that came(to be used in America) when the King of England began to require the sheared off skin of dead Native Americans as proof before payment on a bounty for murdering them, per Phips Proclamation of 1755 . Yeah, I would say that might be a bit scarring to Native American children who just might come into contact with regular use of the term.

Here's a little more insight:



Dear Editor;

It was brought to my attention that some were asking if the term "redskin" was really offensive to Indians and that they would like to hear from us on this subject. Well, here you are...I am Blackfoot, Cherokee and Choctaw...and yes, the term is extremely offensive to me. Let me explain why. Back not so long ago, when there was a bounty on the heads of the Indian people...the trappers would bring in Indian scalps along with the other skins that they had managed to trap or shoot. These scalps brought varying prices as did the skins of the animals. The trappers would tell the trading post owner or whoever it was that he was dealing with, that he had 2 bearskins, a couple of beaver skins...and a few scalps. Well, the term "scalp" offended the good Christian women of the community and they asked that another term be found to describe these things. So, the trappers and hunters began using the term "redskin"...they would tell the owner that they had bearskin, deer skins....and "redskins." The term came from the bloody mess that one saw when looking at the scalp...thus the term "red"...skin because it was the "skin" of an "animal" just like the others that they had...so, it became "redskins". So, you see when we see or hear that term...we don't see a football team...we don't see a game being played...we don't see any "honor"...we see the bloody pieces of scalps that were hacked off of our men, women and even our children...we hear the screams as our people were killed...and "skinned" just like animals. So, yes, Mr./Ms. Editor...you can safely say that the term is considered extremely offensive. In Struggle,

Tina Holder

Mesa, Az.

If you didn't know that and this was your very first time hearing it, ever, particularly from Native Americans standing right in front of you, it could be a bit upsetting. A person might think you were thenthe taking of Native-American scalps, just like the hunting and trapping of an animal like a beaver, a deer, or a bear. They might think you're makingof centuries worth of murder.

Because, well, indirectly, you are.

O'Dell was so upset by the encounter that she actually called the police on the Native-American panel, albiet two days later. Police correctly told her, "there is no crime here."

Some of the other pro-team panelists argued that they were essentially outgunned. One of the members of the Native-American panel was Amanda Blackhorse, a primary plaintiff in the case that caused the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to cancel the Washington team's trademark registration for their mascot logo because it's "offensive."



“Going up against Amanda Blackhorse? It’s like playing football and they’re going to have RGIII,” Hawkins said, referring to injured Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III. “I am just an average fan. These are activists who have media training and talking points.

Yeah, imagine going up against a superior force with better preparation and (rhetorical, factual) weapons on hand. It's just so, isn't it? Nothing that Native Americans have ever experienced, I'm certain.

But actually the fans weren't all total amateurs in the discussion field. Ms O'Dell is a former schoolteacher, used to be a sales director for FedEx Field (the Washington team's current stadium) and writes an NFL blog. One of other fans shown in the piece is Brian Dortch, who runs a home repair business and also a Redskins blog.

But here's the thing, all four of them said that if they'd known there was going to be a debate between two opposing panels, they would have done the show anyway.



All four fans said they still would have gone on the show if the producers had told them in advance that there would be a debate. But they felt misled and exploited because they weren’t told.

Boy, doesn't it suck when people are inconsiderate of your feelings? Doesn't it burn when they just sort of deliberatelyand just don't care about how this affects you? I mean, just consider how bad you'd feel if someone was regularlywhile misleading everyone about it to the tune of millions in profit every Sunday night in the fall? And on Monday. And on Thursday nights on CBS.

"Tell me what you got for me?"

And which is it? Would they have gone into the debate willingly or wouldn't they? Would they have backed down if they knew they'd be facing off with Amanda Blackhorse and a set of comedians from the group the 1491s or not?

We've got multiple articles about how the pro-team fans felt "threatened" and "ambushed" and "outgunned," but things actually didn't end there for three members of the Native-American panel who—following a specific invitation made by one of the Washington fans during their panel to "come on down to one of the games and meet them"—continued the next day to the Washington tailgate party with the admittedly naive hope that they might have a chance to show some of the fans their "humanity" and perhaps "change a few minds" here and there, as described in the Missoula News by 1491s member Migizi Pensoneau:





That did not go as I’d hoped. There were points during that hour-long experience where I actually was afraid for my life. I have never been so blatantly threatened, mocked or jeered. It was so intense, so full of vitriol that none of the footage ended up being used in the segment. I’m a big dude—6’1”, and a lotta meat on the bones. But a blonde little wisp of a girl completely freaked me out as I waited in line for the bathroom. “Is that shirt supposed to be funny?” she asked motioning to my satirical “Caucasians” T-shirt. And then she said, “I’ll fucking cut you.” Actually, she didn’t scare me so much as the wannabe linebackers standing behind her who looked like they wanted to make good on her threat.

I think back to the tailgate: the man blowing cigar smoke in my face, the man who mockingly yelled, “Thanks for letting us use your name!”, the group who yelled at us to “go the fuck home,” the little waif who threatened to cut me, the dude who blew the train horn on his truck as I walked by the hood. I think of all of that, and I think back to O’Dell crying and trying desperately to get out of the room full of calm Natives. I thought she was crying because she was caught unawares and was afraid. But I realized that was her defense mechanism, and that by overly dramatizing her experience, she continued to trivialize ours. It was privilege in action. And as I realized these things, something else became incredibly clear: She knew she was wrong.

Afterward Pensoneau writes that he reflected on the contrast between the two events.Did she know she was wrong? Or was she just afraid that being on TV and being shown how wrong she was would be a threat to her own blog's legitimacy? "I am going to be defamed." No, you were being held accountable for your mistaken belief this bigoted nickname had no impact or affect on Native Americans.

The fact is the term "Redskins" is what's defamatory here. It's reducing the life of a human to nothing more than an animal, a pelt, a scalp, a trophy, currency in an exchange. That's what the word means.

Yes, how dare they make her feel responsible for participating in a process that hurts the feelings and sense of self-worth of Native American children? Why that's "defamation!" she says.

No, it's just true.

But then when those same Native Americans, in lesser numbers and now vastly outnumbered by Washington fans attempted to openly meet with and make their case, they get "I'll fucking cut you—for wearing a joke "Caucasians" T-shirt. They get "Go the Fuck Home" and "Thanks for giving us your name."

Here we see two perfect examples of Ignorant Entitlement in action. One where the entitlement is challenged with better facts, better arguments, and also better numbers and just like Custer, is decimated. They lose. Then comes the crying, the ruminations, the "No Fair, No Fair—you've got informed people on your side," and then out comes the police, and then of course up to the lawyers to rebalance the scales. Reinflate the entitlement to its former stature.

Me thinks someone doth protest far too much for having been whomped in a comedy show "debate."

In the second case here we see unabashed entitlement in its natural habitat, where it has the upper hand and open mocking, jeering, bullying and threatening of one small group of people—because of who they are—goes on without any hint of remorse or restraint. In both cases, when threatened the entitled attack, either like a cornered animal or swarm when they see the wounded or vulnerable within their reach, particularly when challenged with that oh-so-painful of weapons: truth.

Then again, it was a football tailgate party so that perhaps reasoned debate is probably far too much to hope for by anyone who challenges the prevailing view.

In the end one portion of the segment that did make it on air pretty much sums this "cultural sensitivity" issue up. And that is the fact that people insist on claiming it's a "cultural sensitivity" problem because they just can't bring themselves to call it what it really is.

Racism.

Did someone say we didn't have that in American anymore? Guess again.