While the NBA is in the process of trying to clean up its act when it comes to racism this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested a more thorough pro sports spring cleaning should take place. And Reid has an idea of a good place to start: Washington, DC. On the Senate floor Wednesday, the Nevada Senator, praised the efforts of the NBA and commissioner Adam Silver in dealing with Clippers owner Donald Sterling and went after the NFL and Washington’s NFL team owner Daniel Snyder. “I wonder if they’ve taken notice of the NBA’s decisive action. How long will the NFL continue to do nothing, zero, as one of its teams bears a name that inflicts so much pain on Native Americans?” Reid said.
Here’s more from Reid’s floor speech, via Politico:
“For far too long, the NFL has been sitting on its hands doing nothing while an entire population of Americans has been denigrated,” Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “I believe [NFL Commissioner] Roger Goodell is a good man, but it’s time for this good man to act. Remove this hateful term from your league’s vocabulary, follow the NBA’s example, and rid the league of bigotry and racism.”
“I, along with most all of America, applaud the NBA’s work in swiftly moving to stamp out bigotry from its ranks,” Reid said. “Commissioner Silver and the NBA leadership have set the standard for how professional sports organizations should act in the face of racism.”
“It is untoward of Daniel Snyder to try and hide behind tradition. Tradition? That’s what he says, in refusing to change the name of the team,” the senator said. “Tradition? What tradition? A tradition of racism is all that name leaves in its wake.”
