Rude.

Why do people who are not members of a particular group feel compelled to weigh in on what is or is not offensive to said group?

More to the point, why are white people trying to explain away the insult inherent in the word "redskin"?  Seriously, shut up.  Is your skin red?  No.  Then why are you talking?

I don't follow football, and frankly beyond freeing a bunch of superhuman-sized people with possible mad brain injury and its potential for injury-based violence into the general public post-career with no mental health safety net, I don't care about the NFL.  But enough with the Washington Redskins already.

Like everyone would be cool with the Detroit N*ggers?  The Silicon Valley Dot Heads?  The UCLA Bird Flu?

Clearly the exact same white people telling the world how Native Americans should feel about "redskins" would take no issue with any of those team names, because their built-in racism is what conveniently blinds them to the dickishness of Washington's team name.  You don't have to ride around on a horse covered in a white sheet to be a racist, you just have to be the kind of obnoxious asshole who thinks he speaks for other people about their comfort level with terms and treatment when really all he is saying is, "It would be unfair TO ME to have to acknowledge that you might expect fairly a modicum of evolved consideration for some blatantly obvious undertones that aren't cool to your heritage."

But SWZA, isn't that exactly what you're doing?  Speaking for someone else?

No.  I'm not.  I'm not coopting somebody else's offense and trying to pass it off as my own.  What I am doing is pointing out that in this country, skin color is what the ruling class used to set apart ethnic groups and mark them as "other" and "less than." 

You can pretend otherwise all you want, but there're libraries full of history books to prove you wrong an internet search away.