Damn, I want that shirt too now. That’s awesome.
I dont think anyone can really defend the Cleveland Indians’s Chief Wahoo.
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“Krauts” living in the U.S. became white, so they’re no longer discriminated against on the basis of who they are. Kraut is a more or less a slur based on ethnicity, not race.
People from China are still discriminated against on the basis of race, along with other Asians.
So yeah, Krauts is a slur that’s lost its sting, if it ever even had any, but “Chinamen” and related racial slurs certainly haven’t.
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It’s the wurst.
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There isn’t any genetic reality to race – race is socially constructed.
During WWII there was definitely a construction of a German race – just look at the propaganda posters with the square-jawed, pointy-toothed “Germans”. “Kraut” was definitely a slur in context at the time.
“Chinamen” was absolutely a race in the 19th and early 20th centuries that’s been absorbed into a more generic “Asian” – which is sort of racist in itself. I’m reminded of the joke from King of the Hill:
“Are you Chinese or Japanese?”
“I’m Laotian.”
“What ocean?”
“Laos! It’s a small country in southeast Asia!”
“…so are you Chinese or Japanese?”
Anyway, folks of German ancestry and even ethnic Germans don’t seem to deal with the discrimination problems that other (usually darker) ethnicities face though I wouldn’t go around calling anyone a “Kraut”.
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Social constructions change skin color?
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That would seem to be a non sequitir. Skin color is a physical fact whereas “race” is an abstract socially constructed concept.
Consider that American Indians do not actually have red skin and Asians do not really have yellow skin.
Here’s an example of two different “races” members of both of which would be recognized as merely one race by, say, USians:
The fact that Tutsi and Hutu would recognize each other as different races while white USians would only recognize one is a pretty good hint that race is not just about skin color.
There’s also the fact that USians tend to condense all Asians into an “Asian” race whereas, say, Chinese and Japanese folks would recognize each other as belonging to different races.
Edit:
You can also consider that lots of folks who would now be considered part of a homogenous “white race” were once considered different races. This includes the Irish, Italians, and Germans.
Some articles on race construction:
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Not to make light of this, but as a New Englander I am always kind of annoyed that New York has a team called “the Yankees”, not because the word is offensive, but because New England is the home of the “true Yankee”, and New York is NOT part of New England. Give us our word back!
I guess if you’re from south of the Mason Dixon we’re all Yankees up here (but then if you’re from Mexico then even a Texan is a Yankee, so I guess that’s just how it goes.)
(Also, as a Red Sox fan I f@$kin hate the goddamned muth^&f$king New York Yankees, so there’s that too. Wait. . . that sounds like (ahem ) “tribalism.”)
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Kind of like the arch-rivalry between Manchester City FC vs Manchester United FC?
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From What do you mean we, paleface?
If a team name like Indians is bad, what about a team name like Vikings?
That’s apples and oranges. The Vikings were not a victimized class subjected to genocide, theft of their land, etc. The issue here, at least from my perspective, isn’t about ethnic stereotyping; it’s about systematically destroying a culture and then using that culture’s imagery as if it belongs to you, which it doesn’t.
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The main problem with the Celtics mascot is the inaccuracy: There’s no way he could balance a basketball on his finger while being blackout drunk.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
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I’m sure there are many Real Americans (in the Palinist sense of the word “real”) who take issue with a team called the Patriots in a liberal pansy region like New England.
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No one would have a whole league of teams with just prosaic city names - that’s crazy.
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That quote is exactly why these “see the racism now” campaigns never work very well.
I was going to mention how the Celtics mascot doesn’t seem to be drinking or getting in fights in the logo.
Though those stereotypes probably fit Celtics fans more than they do actual Irishmen. (Actually so does the stereotype about preoccupation with clover trefoils. I have a feeling there’s a lot more trefoil tattoos in the Boston metro area than in pretty much all of Ireland.)
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Pointland points! We’re number one for points.
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And yet many of those teams still have informal mascots and nicknames, including some that are… how should we say… uncomplimentary.
OK, how about a trade off-- our NFL team gets to keep the name “Patriots” but our soccer team, the New England Revolution, will change their team colors to red and yellow, with a stylized hammer and sickle soccer ball as the logo, sound good?
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“Krauts” is a demeaning stereotype. They prefer to be called “Aryans.”
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Yes and no: As a cartoonish stereotype of a dehumanized abstract ‘irish’, it lacks only alcoholism and popery to really cover all the bases.
However, ‘racism’ (as something that actually matters in people’s lives and life chances) isn’t just a combination of stereotypes and graphic design. You need power and in-group/out-group dynamics lined up as well. The ‘Celtics’ logo does a pretty good job on stereotypes and graphic design; but it falls flat on the other counts: ‘Irish’ haven’t really been non-white in quite some time (and ‘catholic’ has a reasonably cozy relationship with all but the nuttier protestant fringes these days). Plus, in Boston, the sheer demographics are such that “irish” have nearly the mass needed to make their own damn in-group, even if they weren’t usually categorized with generic-English-speaking-whites for grouping purposes. Similarly, in terms of power, there are probably a few old-school WASP bastions, where no Irish need apply; but such would be so exclusive that virtually no WASPs need apply either.
That (in my opinion) is the real difference: as a pure stereotypes-n’-graphic design problem, it’s pretty much the same as the ‘Indians’ and the ‘Redskins’ ones; but (unlike the ‘irish’ as a population), the actual ‘indians’ are still pretty much living at the bottom of the proverbial hill down which shit flows. That’s where the difference comes in.
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