Do the Chicago Fire ever play in a crowded theatre?
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Are you of the opinion that you can freely use racial slurs as long as you donât intend them in a âracist wayâ? If you do, we are simply not going to find resolution here.
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That really does capture DC.
Perhaps a more acceptable name would be the âWashington Bribesâ that seems to capture the spirit of the nomadic tribes that occupy the DC region.
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Iâm rarely against the ACLU, but in this case I think they have things wrong. I canât understand how a right to expression translates into a right to trademark. I think the band in question can lean on their âreclamation of the termâ argument, and an argument about whether many or more people find the term offensive (as Dykes on Bikes did to get their trademark). If the government was coming down and saying, âYou canât name your band that,â then that would sound pretty unconstitutional. But âWe wonât provide legal protection for you to profit off of that termâ isnât quite the same thing.
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In related newsâŚ
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Context matters.
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They talk about their position on their website:
Their position is that the government shouldnât be allowed to play language police.
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Well, again, Iâm not saying the government should come in an say âyouâve got to change your name or weâll put you in prison.â You can even make a good policy argument that the government ought not try to judge what is offensive, which is what I think is being argued in the blog you link to. But to make a constitutional argument that the government cannot restrict what can and cannot be trademarked just seems wrong to me. It goes far beyond the government not being allowed to pass laws restricting speech and into the government being required to pass laws to protect certain business practices.
I think American lawyers and courts often confused the right to express oneself for the right to profit from those expressions. I donât think that confusion should be encouraged.
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I donât see it that way, theyâre arguing those names are far more offensive and theyâve been unfairly targeted. Winning demonstrates their name is no more offensive as those others, a fact that would hold true for any trademarked name.
I really want them to change the name but I think the trademark approach is a horrible way to do it. Government is supposed to act in a viewpoint neutral manner, I find it extremely dubious that the âRedskinsâ name became so outrageously offensive in the last few years that it canât even be trademarked.
As it stands now I think the cancelled trademark has major first amendment issues. Imagine a left wing satirical group that had âcrackersâ or ârednecksâ in its name getting its trademark cancelled while far more offensive terms were allowed. Wouldnât you think that violated the 1st amendment?
Iâm sympathetic to their argument that the law shouldnât be arbitrary and inconsistently applied.
Is it more plausible that itâs been outrageously offensive for a very long time and no one cared because no one cares about indigenous North Americans? My highschool had the same name in the 1990s and people made the same argument about why it should change and my highschool dutifully ignored that argument. This isnât new. Native Americans arenât suddenly the ethnicity most disproportionately killed by police in America, or the ethnicity most disproportionately put in prison in Canada. They arenât suddenly the ethnicity that has been targeted for genocide for hundreds of years. We, as a culture, just didnât care. If you read the history of the Washington American Football Team youâll see that the name was racist from its inception, and that the team mascots and rituals intentionally mocked indigenous people.
That is the strongest part of their case, but Iâm not sure how inconsistent it really is compared to any other law. We usually hear about three kinds of legal cases: legal cases that we or our immediate circle of friends/relatives are involved in, legal cases involving very rich parties that have expensive lawyers on both sides, and legal cases in front of the Supreme Court. This gives us the illusion that legal cases have a lot of consistency (in the first case because we just donât have anything to compare them to). But there are tons of ambiguous things in the law. Custody decisions often rest on the best interests of the child, or, in other words, whatever the judge you happen to have thinks are the best interests of the child. Watch Judge Judy sometime. Sheâs an actual judge making actual rulings. Itâs horrifying.
Having judges decide whether something is too offensive to trademark isnât totally out of line with the work that judges do. It will create inconsistent results, but family court cases, contract dispute cases and criminal cases all have plenty of inconsistencies.
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âOutrageously offensiveâ is a question of community standards. I think you can and perhaps should be able to shift community standards enough so people recognize the âRedskinsâ name, even after decades of use, is so outrageously offensive the trademark should be cancelled. But thatâs the finish line, I donât think itâs nearly at that point currently.
Well, which community? Dykes on Bikes won their argument because they were the dykes who went on the bikes. I think itâs fairly common now that if you want to know if X is an offensive term for Y, then you go and ask Y, rather than asking some old white dudes for a history/etymology lesson. But while weâre seeing more and more of this approach, itâs not universally accepted yet and itâs actually pretty new. The âsuddenâ change in the offensiveness, could easily be accounted for just by that change, i.e., by the fact that we now care about whether Native Americans think it is offensive or not.
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I totally agree Redskins the football team is offensive in a way âDykes on Bikesâ isnât.
But I disagree that the offensiveness of Redskins is so bad that they should lose trademark protection. Those are the kind of battles that can, and should, be won through public debate, and the Redskins should change their name for the pure fact that itâs bad PR and draws public criticism. Going through the courts puts them in the position of ruling on good taste which I think would be a huge step backwards for liberalism.
Is certified assassin taken?
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And I disagree that either of us (unless you are Native American) ought to be hazarding a guess as to whether the term is that offensive or not. As for using the courts, the courts have been an important place where marginalized groups have fought for their rights. Native Americans (and other indigenous North Americans) have endured that sports teamâs name for decades while waiting for the public to care, and saying that the battle ought to be won in the sphere of public opinion, to me, is saying that was right. That it ultimately has to be won in the sphere of public opinion is an ugly reality that justified slavery in 1800 and no votes for women in 1900.
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Iâm not sure it doesnât work legally though.
âYouâre inconsistently applying the law because of our visibility. Either apply it across the board or leave us alone.â
Doesnât mean the judges will buy it though.
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Remember, there are two "ass"es in âassassinâ. 
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Iâm specifically talking about the broader community, not how offended or not offended Native Americans should feel.
No itâs saying it was wrong, but itâs not the purpose of government to correct every wrong. This is a wrong that should be corrected by winning the public debate, not by using the courts and damaging freedom of speech in the process.
Slavery and womenâs suffrage are almost completely unrelated. This is about an offensive name and thereâs no right to not be offended.
According to the 1st amendment I have a right to say offensive things. The government has no business telling someone their business doesnât deserve trademark protection because some people find the name offensive.
How about just the ones protected by the governmentâs laws?
How so? I think they have every right.
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