TOM THE DANCING BUG: An NFL Fan Defends the "R" Word

boing
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Are you really taking that argument at face-value? I would have thought the reference to the non-existence of Ireland would have been a dead giveaway…

I don’t think the [sarcasm] tags are rendering properly, today. #stillafewbugsinthesystem

Do you have any textual sources for the specific term “Fighting Irish” pre-dating the Civil War?

@Mindysan33 - I have to admit, I was not aware of a Civil-War origin for the term before, and wikipedia itself suggests its debateable.

But let’s assume the pejorative origin. As with N.W.A., it’s a term that is not forced on the weak, but taken on as a badge of pride (or at least an upraised finger) presented to the world. Notre Dame was founded by Catholics (read “Irish” for that time period); The Redskins were not founded by aborigines. They are not flip-sides of the same coin.

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The crux of the matter for me is: I can see how the name hurts Native Americans, but I can’t really see how changing the name would hurt Washington fans. If your loyalty to a sports team (which could pack up and leave and change names like the Houston Oilers becoming the Tennessee Titans) is so important to who you are, then you have issues bigger than the name of a sports team. Being the fan of a particular team isn’t really “in your blood”, being of a particular race is.

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Scalps aren’t made of skin? Or it’s not so bad because it’s just the scalp? Or westward expansion wasn’t “real” colonialism, so it doesn’t matter in how we think of Native Americans today?

I wasn’t aware that Native Americans started the Boston Redskins…

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I think we agree on that last point!

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[quote=“Mindysan33, post:63, topic:43028”]
Scalps aren’t made of skin? Or it’s not so bad because it’s just the scalp?[/quote]

Scalping was a Native American practice, not a European one - unless we’re talking about the ancient Iranian Alans, or the Visigoths.

We’re talking about the origins of the term “redskin”, not European Colonialism. Please stay on topic.

Please don’t invent strawman arguments to pretend I’ve put forth.

I never said they did. (Although curiously, the team hired a part-Sioux head coach when they changed names in 1933 - completely unrelated, but interesting).

Please reread the except of my post that you quoted, and try to demonstrate basic reading comprehension. Here it is again, for reference.

After all - there are historical usages of First Nations / Native Americans positively calling themselves “redskins” and “red man/men” predating the naming of the Boston Redskins, but that doesn’t change the fact people view it as still being insulting because it was used negatively previously by others.

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Looks like whitey appropriated that shit, too:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-colonists-practice-scalping

(edited to add) Also, the wikipedia entry also mentions numerous examples of the American colonist using scalping… so there’s that. Context matters, too. Also, one more link about scalping:

http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/ScholarsForum/MMD2263.html

These aren’t unrelated… Europeans weren’t visiting for tea, they were empire building. Later, so were Americans - there is no other way to describe the history of westward expansion other than imperialism, supported by notions of white supremacy, which argued that the color of one’s skin made one inferior or superior…

It didn’t think it was a strawman to talk about Native Americans TODAY, since that’s what we’re discussing…

No need to be nasty about it or to resort to insinuating I’m an idiot… I think I’ve been most patient while disagreeing with you in this thread. It seems what I was trying to say was misunderstood, so here goes. The fact that Native peoples used that term in some way doens’t automatically mean that whites should do the same, especially given the history of racism and oppression aimed at Native peoples, much like black people using the N-word does not give whites a license to do so. That aside, I sincerely doubt that the people who used the term in this case were thinking that native Americans were a proud people who deserved to be honored. More like, they were a dead people who stood for savagery and war (maybe even the noble savage trope), hence a suitable name for a sports team.

Now, I realize that you’ve been playing “devil’s advocate” here, and that’s fine, It’s in part, why I engaged, because I assumed that you were doing this as a means of trying to further this discussion on depictions of Native Americans in popular sports. However, it seems more and more that you really support the argument about the name coming from Washington fans. I’d say that, overall, the key point I want to make is that some Native Americans find this offensive because of American colonialism that ethnically cleansed Native Americans. You might disagree, but I feel that this is enough to seriously consider changing the name…

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Okay, @Glitch, I think it’s time you received the “Tomahawk Chop!”

All in funsies, of course, with with MAD PROPS for NATIVE AMERICANS #whoop-whoop-whoop #ay-yi-yi-yi-yi #R #E #S #P #E #C #T

Note the pejorative furry-caricatures 15-seconds in. There’s always got to be another group to look down upon.

“No dogs or fur-suits allowed!”

###REMEMBER THE DE-SUITING TIMES! #notyourmascot

 

 

 

One more, for our Friends from Pandora:

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Just as there are historical examples of brown-skinned people positively calling themselves “negroes.” I wonder how well “The Boston Negroes” would go down as a team name these days? Fans could even wear Afro-style wigs and special makeup to show support for African American Heritage!

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It’s still used today.

http://www.nanbpwc.org/

As I said, it’s antiquated, but not automatically offensive.

Like everything, it’s context. The “n-word”, so vile it will get you banned on some sites for its utterance, is used in a non-negative manner all the time.

If the Redskins mascot looked more like the Cleavland Indians, I’d be more inclined to see it as open mockery. But like a lot of things in the world, it’s not a black and white issue.

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The context in which “Redskins” is being used here is really no different than the context I just described above. If there was a historically-white NFL team calling themselves “The Washington Negroes” and using images of African Americans as their mascots then it would be almost universally condemned as the overt racism it was.

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Aaaaaaand, who founded those organizations?

cg502446fd19a79.jpg825×590 118 KB

I couldn’t find the comic in black-and-white; only in colored.

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Yeah but that is sorta my point. Some of that is outdated speech, but people using it aren’t meaning anything bad by it. In their day that was the polite term. They just haven’t quite shifted with the times.

I remember my grandpa would say something like, “That nice colored boy down the block…”

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A lot of (most? who knows) Redskins fans “just haven’t quite shifted with the times” because they think being asked to shift their use of language would be bowing to “political correctness.” And they tend to associate all sorts of other things they don’t like along with that (socialism, nationalized health care, the Democrats, Obama, etc. etc.).

A lot of fans who cling to racist mascots do so because they see the issue as one more battle against forces they (ironically) think are “taking over this country.”

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http://the-toast.net/2013/10/02/no-more-devils-advocate/

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The Devil has plenty of advocates in this argument. I don’t think s/he needs any help.

Edited to add: I think you (and many others) fundamentally misunderstand what a “devil’s advocate” is supposed to do.

The purpose of a DA is not “try to poke holes in someone else’s argument in order to provoke or annoy them, even if you don’t really believe the points you’re making.” A DA is the ally of the person making an argument; their function is to strengthen the argument by finding its weak points. You seem to be just trying to “stir the pot,” especially with snarky comments about @Mindysan33’s reading comprehension.

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Ever seen Clerks 2? There is an entire scene about just this topic… I don’t want to post, as it has very racially offensive language, though… But if you haven’t seen it, look up Clerks 2 taking it back.

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FYI:
I’m pretty sure that one was depicting a person of Jewish persuasion…
Hence the “Sabbath Desecration”
Views of Immigrants | eHISTORY

Apparently, the author of the text for The Stranger at Our Gate (April 25, 1896) did not see the irony of using a quote by a Jewish prophet to justify discriminating against Jewish immigrants.
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As soon as the Irish-American community makes a concerted effort to get Notre Dame to change its team name, then we can make the comparison between the Redskins and the Fighting Irish.

You see how that works? American Indians are offended by the term “Redskins”, but Irish-Americans aren’t offended by “Fighting Irish.”

Or to put it another way, what if Notre Dame decided to change the name of their team to “The Micks”?

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I find it much easier and simpler to just not say offensive things or call people offensive names. I don’t seem to have a problem with it, and I"m a gregarious, social individual with an active social and professional life. If I call someone something they don’t want to be called, or say something someone doesn’t like, and they mention it to me, I apology (sincerely) and modify my behavior in the future. I ask questions if I feel it is appropriate, or I do some research on my own (www.google.com <— yay Google!).

It ain’t that hard to be a decent human being. Really. People who hem and haw over being afraid they might “offend” people if they aren’t “pc enough” (whatever “pc” means), are already pretty obvious assholes, by and large.

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Oh, come off it. it’s a totally black and white issue. This is not that fucking hard.

The more I scroll, the worse the racist arguments get.

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