while i agree, you can’t really deny the…lack of sensitivity? of chief wahoo, it seems a little weak and sort of day late and a dollar short to simply change the name…just sort of look at the floor like a scolded child and say “well…sorry, Native Americans.” i’m not sure what the solution is…i could see changing the logo, but changing the name of a sports team isn’t going to solve the racism problem in this (or any) country. as a white guy who grew up in a middle class suburb (one that neighbours not one but two Indian reserves, mind you, but anyway), I don’t know that I could say definitively that most Native people aren’t offended by it (the name, I mean; the logo is pretty clearly out of line)…but it does seem unlikely to me, at least compared to other, more blatant forms of racism. What I mean is, there are probably more effective ways of fighting racism than worrying about about the University of Illinois’ mascot, or a baseball team on Lake Erie.
Well, I don’t see any Vikings around.
The offensiveness of a slur depends a lot on the current and historical power balance between the parties involved.
A woman calling a man “bastard” will never have the sting of a man calling a woman “bitch.” (In part because the term “bastard” itself is really less an insult against him than it is against his mother.) A black person calling a white person “cracker” will never have the sting of a white person calling a black person “n****r.”
There may have been a time and place when “Kraut” and “Mick” were similarly hurtful to “Redskin” but that time has passed. Even so it’s hard to imagine either being adopted as a sports mascot in the 21st century, especially if large numbers of German- or Irish-Americans expressed offense.
I’m not sure your attitude is really helping us move towards the “post-regionalist” society we all dream about.
No action will solve the racism problem in this or any other country. That’s no excuse for continuing to do something that’s blatantly racist, especially when large numbers of Native Americans have made it well known that they find it offensive.
oh and just for the record, i always found “asian” to be a little off the mark…Russians are asian, Iranians are asian, Indians (people from India, not to be confused with our pal Chief Wahoo up there) are asian, Pakistanis are asian. It’s the biggest damn continent, and it’s got a wild range of people in it, so to just apply that term to folks from China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, etc seems a little…I dunno. It’s like how no one would call a white guy named deBeer with a bunch of diamond mines who now lives in the US an African American. Or someone from Egypt, or Morocco or something. Just an aside.
I don’t think anyone said it would but it’s pretty obvious from the history of usage of the n-word that stigmatizing rather than celebrating outward expressions of racism helps in the process of making racism something to be ashamed of and to hide rather than to be proud of and to flaunt.
Well, luckily we’re not committed to only using the most effective ways of fighting bad things and every little bit helps.
I don’t disagree with you, but I honestly don’t know that it would have any effect at all. I guess what I’m getting at is that these offensive logos or names are the result of racism, and we should focus on what causes it. We need to change people’s ways of thinking, not show up at the end and whitewash (no pun intended) an insensitivity that wasn’t even intended to be offensive in the first place from like 80 years ago.
I liken it to the practice in the last 30-some years of changing someone’s job title to make it sound more important than it is, even though the job doesn’t change. Nobody has a secretary anymore, people have “administrative assistants.” Do you type shit, file shit, and answer the phone? Well then guess what, you’re a secretary. Do you work a cash register and put shit in bags? Guess what, you’re a clerk. Do you clean shit up and mop floors? You’re not a custodian, or a sanitation technician, you’re a janitor. What we need to do is make the words “secretary,” or “clerk,” or “janitor” retain some respect, not just change the language that describes them. A word is just a sound and some letters made to represent something, but what we need to accomplish is change the way people think about the people behind those words, not the words themselves.
Doesn’t sound like you respect people in those positions too much.
Are people supposed to quietly accept the results of racism? Or just some of the results? Accepting some results of racism makes it that much easier to argue that racism is not a problem.
Unless you count “ending a practice that continues to offend and demean Native Americans” as an effect.
[quote=“adamcoe, post:68, topic:11882”]
I guess what I’m getting at is that these offensive logos or names are the result of racism, and we should focus on what causes it.
[/quote]It’s a lot harder to end racism if society allows racist behavior to continue unchallenged.
So German is a race? Wow, that echoes the NSDAP.
to the contrary, i’ve done all those jobs earlier in my life and i know i didn’t feel any better when i became a “guest services associate” instead of just a dude behind a counter. i got paid the same, my job was the same, it just makes the people above you feel like they’ve helped you out when all they’ve done is pander to dumb people’s sensibilities. we should respect people in all those jobs because without them (janitors in particular), our lives would get ugly in a hurry.
Nuff said.
These are not separate goals. It’s difficult to convince people making racist caricatures isn’t acceptable while at the same time a major sports team shows them that a racist caricature is acceptable.
Yes, people probably didn’t care it was offensive 80 years ago, but this is the National Congress of American Indians reminding us that it’s offensive now. Who are you to decide that shouldn’t be important to them?
What about the Dallas Cowboys? Those folks taking care of the cows were adults–not boys. This is especially offensive considering many of them were freed African slaves or descendents of them. A few of them were women too. Also, they didn’t just work with cows they worked with bulls as well. A better name would be Dallas Cattle Ranch Hands.
I’m open to any ideas you have that may be more effective than stigmatizing loud and public displays of racism.
I’ve already made an argument as to why stigmatizing the result of racism helps some. To be honest, I’m pretty sure the cause of racism is a bunch of stuff that happened a few hundred years ago and short of someone inventing a time machine I’m not sure there’s much we can do about those causes.
However, focusing on results has a pretty good track record. If your house was burning down because you left a lit cigarette lying around I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t insist that the firemen putting out your house stop what they’re doing and find the cigarette that caused the problem.
Maybe changing the Cleveland Indians mascot wouldn’t do much to combat racism but you know what does absolutely nothing to combat racism? Insisting that people who are actively trying to combat racism are doing it wrong because they’re not using some mythical most effective means of doing so.
You know, if the National Congress of American Indians were actually selling those hats, I bet a lot of people would buy them.
I’m not sure what that means.
But they might want to trademark those designs before someone else starts selling knockoffs.
This got me wondering if the potato famine could be considered a genocide. I found this story about some Native Americans donating money to help the Irish, but I wish there was a citation on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#From_Native_Americans
And no one has mentioned The Fighting Sioux, tsk tsk. What do you do when they support such a name? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/14/fighting-sioux-name-contr_n_1596154.html
