I've been thinking about Ward's talk last night and the term redskin.
He put his remarks right at the beginning of his talk, which I think
was effective.  If you were there, you heard him say that wearing a
t-shirt with the term redskin is like wearing one with the term
nigger on it.  Actually, I don't think that is quite the equivalent.
Because as Ward makes clear, redskin does not refer to skin color or
to a people, no matter how derogatory.  It refers to a practice--the
historical (traditional)  Indian-killing-practice where one would
receive a bounty by turning in that Indian's scalp or "bloody red
skin."  Hence the equivalent phrase on a t-shirt might be "hang
nigger" or "burn kyke."

Ward's point is that the term redskin is a form of hate speech.
Hence, it is a hate crime, and not protected by the first amendment.
Fascinating.

Tom Dutton