Dori Monson not shying away from ‘Redskins’ in Monday’s Seahawks broadcasts

As media outlets and newspapers, including “The Seattle Times,” are omitting Redskins from their coverage, KIRO Radio’s Seahawks pre-and-post game host Dori Monson said he won’t be shying away from the name on Monday night.

“My policy is as long as that is the team nickname, that I am going to use it,” Monson told KIRO Radio’s Morning News. “As long as that is the nickname, just like the Ravens, and the Browns, and the Cardinals, every other team, I don’t see it as my job as a broadcaster to sensor that.”

The Seahawks take on the Washington Redskins in Monday Night Football this week. As far as Monson is concerned, unless the NFL or Redskins owner Dan Snyder decide to change the name, he’ll leave it in his pre-and-post game broadcasts.

Morning News Anchor Colleen O’Brien asked if there were other forces like his employer or the FCC that might influence Monson to stop.

“Would you be moved to stop using it if the company that we work for or if the FCC were to fine you or fire you for using that name, would that move you?” O’Brien asked.

“Those would be very powerful motivating forces for me,” Monson acknowledged, adding that he thinks the FCC stepping into this debate is out of line.

“I think that is a crazy government overreach,” said Monson. “I certainly understand the argument against Redskins, but I also understand the argument in favor of it, which is I have never, honest to goodness, in a half century, heard that word used as a slur.”

In his experience, any reference to Redskins has always been to the football team.

“I think everybody that I know of, pretty much everybody in the country knows that word not as a slur but as a team nickname. So I don’t have a problem using it in the broadcast,” said Monson. “But yeah, if the league, if our company, if the Seahawks, if they decided they want that off limits, I would respect that because they are our boss.”

O’Brien asked if an appeal from any local tribes would change Monson’s mind.

“I would respect that, but again I coach high school basketball for the Shorecrest Scots, and if Scottish people came to me and said they found that to be offensive, I would understand that perspective but I would hope that they understand I have never once used that as a slur,” said Monson.

“It’s a part of evolving language. What is interesting to me is I don’t know how much of this outrage is sincere and how much of it is our manufactured outrage du jour, because five years ago I certainly never heard any controversy,” said Monson. “Again, I respect everybody’s got their own perspective on it, I respect that, but as long as the league decrees that is the team nickname, I will continue to use it.”