re: Why are the Redskins getting so much heat?

This isn't just some random crowd riling that's going on, a group has followed the procedures laid out by the US Patent and Trademark office to dispute a trademark, and after a decade of working the system, they got a ruling in their favor and now the Redskins will appeal. This isn't the first time it's happened either.

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The Redskins trademark, which has been registered since 1967, was also canceled in 1999, but that decision was overturned in 2003. The team is allowed to enforce its trademark registration while the appeal is being heard.

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LINK

The difference between now and 1999 is social media. In 1999 probably the only people that heard about this were Redskins fans that read the local paper daily. Now everybody hears about it and feels the need to weigh in on it, because it's a no brainer to be publicly against racial slurs, and make no mistake, even if decades of being an NFL brand has muddied the meaning of the slur, this is a poorly chosen name by today's standards.