(Newswire.net — November 3, 2014) — Washington – The group of Native Americans led by social worker Amanda Blackhorse, filed a petition back in 2006 against the NFL Washington Redskins team name. The US Patent and Trademark Office ruled in June that six Redskins trademark registrations should be canceled. Then Redskins team lawyers filed a lawsuit against the five Native Americans from the group that filed a petition.
After meeting with both sides on the validity of the lawsuit, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee concluded that dismissing the Redskins suit would be unprecedented.
The Redskins argued against the USPTO board’s decision that the Redskin trademark registration should be canceled, saying the team name wasn’t offensive back when the trademarks were registered, between 1967 and 1990.
Amanda Blackhorse, however, explained her reasoning for filing the petition, which, according to her interview with Al Jazeera, derived from an experience she had at a Redskins game in 2005 when fans were rude, racist and hostile.
“These fans were very aggressive and they were very rude and very disrespectful, very racist and hostile, and just because we simply stood there and held a sign saying we don’t agree with Native American mascots.”
Blackhorse added that the way that fans were dressed — the red face, the feathers, is mockery of Native American culture. “That opened my eyes to all of this,” she said.
While the debate isn’t yet over the Redskins name continuous, the FCC has said that they may ban the team name from being used during television broadcasts.
Native Americans associations called to a protest Sunday outside of TCF Bank Stadium, the University of Minnesota venue where the Vikings are playing until their stadium is finished.
Ahead of the protest, the Washington Redskins’ team bus crashed into an escort police car in Minneapolis on its way to the stadium, no one was injured in a crash, a Redskins spokesperson told CBS Minnesota.