Washington's name and mascot cannot honestly be construed as respectful. (Keith Allison, Creative Commons)

Judy Lee made some good points in her article calling for a name change for the Washington Redskins, but her argument is weighed down by racially-loaded hyperbole. Too much emphasis on white ignorance and catchy copy, devoid of substantive commentary capable of real social change.

It is, simply put, an editorial that lacks perspective.

I was born in Silver Spring, Maryland and in the interest of full disclosure, I have been a fan of Washington's football team my entire adult life. I fondly remember Super Bowl XXVI against Buffalo. I have shared in the euphoria of victory and the years of mediocrity.

I was at FedEx Field last year when Robert Griffin III clinched the NFC East title from our division rivals. I sat motionless as the NFL Rookie of the Year hobbled off the field during a dispiriting playoff loss to Seattle just one week later.

I bleed burgundy and gold. I am an unapologetic fan of the Washington football team. However, I can no longer embrace the team name. It carries with it too much baggage and too much thoughtlessness. 

Lee is right in her assertion that owner Dan Snyder should change the name of the football team, but not for some of the reasons listed.

I cannot make excuses for Snyder's stubborn refusal to change the name and I agree that history will look back on his supporters in a negative light. But the owner of the football team and its fan base are not one and the same. Just because the team is owned and operated by a white man does not mean he represents the lot of us.

"A-ha," you say. "That is exactly what a white person would say!"

True, I guess. But I'm a Jewish white male with faint Native American ancestry and an African-American sister (my biological half-sister). I'm not a novice when it comes to discussion of race and the marginalization of minorities. I can understand why an outsider might view this as a bunch of wealthy, white people taking pot shots at the disenfranchised from the comforts of a heated sky-box.

But Washington's football legacy is not a racial issue; it's a cultural issue.

The football team is just about the only thing that unifies a diverse metropolitan area that has one of the highest percentages of black residents in the nation. It is home to a large number of Latinos and other minorities. Some of the loudest voices supporting Dan Snyder are not white whatsoever.

Chief Zee doesn't want the name to change. At second thought, Hall of Famer Darrell Green doesn't want the name to change either. And RGIII clearly doesn't want the name to change. Not a pale person among them.

Meanwhile, vocal opponents of the team's name have largely come from the sports media, an entity that is predominantly white, educated and male. Look at where the indignation is coming from: John Feinstein, Mike Wise, Bob Costas, Peter King, etc.

I mean, heck, you don't get much whiter than Dan Steinberg - who, to be fair, has not made his official stance known, but publishes any public disdain over the team name at a supsiciously prolific rate. 

61 percent of Washingtonians support the team name, according to a recent poll by The Washington Post. The poll's data found "feelings about the team's nickname were similar across most demographics." The underlying evidence from the Post's poll suggests that higher education matters far more than race in advocating for any name change. 

The people who support the team's name are not white, genocidal racists; they are a diverse coalition of misguided Americans. 

There is a lot of nostalgia and intense value placed on shared experiences. The football team is part of the imagined community that the District has built for itself; the team is interwoven in the social fabric of the region. 

District area residents don't embrace the name out of any animosity for Native Americans; it's just the sad reality of a community that has constructed a cultural identity around a name that is unfortunately derogatory. 

Vilifying area residents will never work. All it does is put good people on the defensive and solidify opponents of reform. It is a tactic that accomplishes nothing and fails to advance any meaningful dialogue. Members of the D.C. metropolitan area need to be included in the discussion, not talked down upon.

So, let's start now.

Changing the team's name should be about respecting the legacy of a group of people who contributed so much to this country, but received nothing but hardship in return. When you ask Native Americans if they are offended by the name, the resounding answer is "no."

But nobody has bothered to ask Native Americans if they are proud of the name.

And that is my problem with the name. It's not respectful. You might be able to cobble together an argument that the name is not offensive, but nobody can make the argument that it is a considerate term with any real sincerity. 

Sorry, Jack Kent Cooke.

The team's current owner, Dan Snyder, is no saint. He is not a beloved pillar of the community. The football team has done nothing to show its appreciation for real Native Americans, but it has no problem monetizing off them. Like almost all Washington football fans, I am capable of separating my dissastifaction with Snyder as an owner from the product he puts on the field. The sports industry is chock full of lousy owners.

In simple terms, Snyder's opinion does not merit reflection.

For a fan base that has the opportunity to share decades worth of memories, while the people who inspired the name cannot, that should be the point of reflection.

Grown men are able to play a game in this country for millions of dollars only because of the sacrifices Native Americans were forced to endure. Every time we watch RGIII take a snap and cheer wildly as he scrambles down the sideline, we need to understand that we have that moment of pure sports bliss precisely because our team mascot afforded us that opportunity.

Is this the best we can do? Cheer for a caricature of fallen American heroes and buy into a name that, at best, literally refers to a group of people by the color of their skin?

I hope not.

Lee is right about one thing: Native Americans deserve better. And Redskins fans owe them that.

Reach Tech Editor Will Federman here; follow him at @wfederman.