It’s true. When a poll estimates that approximately two and a half million people feel something is causing them emotional distress, I’d say it has more importance than a poll stating that two and a half million don’t care about something.
Of course, that same poll still implies that something like two hundred thousand people are distressed by the name. I consider that important too. More important that the name of a football team.
These numbers do not take into consideration the larger number of non-NA people who simply find the name distasteful.
You’re asserting that it’s “currently regarded as an ethnic slur” as if that’s some basic and obvious fact and then proceeding from that point on, when in reality the whole notion that it’s an ethnic slur is predicated on it being offensive. So your entire argument is circular.
I, personally, wouldn’t mind if the Washington Redskins became the Washington Drunk Irish, the Washington Sheep Shagging Scotsmen, the Washington Not-Funny Germans, or the Washington Inbred Mountain Hillbillies, and I have ancestry from all of those groups. It would actually be more funny than offensive if that really happened.
I think the point about whether we (the collective we) have to wait to decide that something is offensive based on whether the targeted group feels offended is valid. We don’t “Redskins” is offensive. it is an ethnic slur. “Darkies” would be offensive. Certain race-based descriptors are clearly tied to a derogatory history, no matter how much someone now wants to imply that we’re discussing a noble warrior or some such nonsense. Choose something else.
It is my belief as well that the poll was likely flawed. My family has been here hundreds of years. Yes, I technically have native american blood. If the only qualifying question that was asked was do you have native american ancestry, then the survey completely missed capturing someone is who culturally native american.
I don’t think this is relevant to the thread, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the intent of the name is to summon up an image of a noble warrior or something of that sort. Why would someone want to give his team a name which conveyed a negative image?
I don’t think there is any all tribe consensus on just about anything. As to the why? well, I would guess that most NAs have more pressing issues to worry about. I’m lucky in that I was raised off the rez so while I was poor I wasn’t rez poor. Then I married “up” and am firmly middle class so have time to be offended over something that is offensive but not super important when you compare it to people wanting clean water, better living conditions and health care.
But getting rid of an ethnic slur is just one more brick needed to pave a smooth road.
Right. There isn’t some officious body at the Office of the English Language that issues a new dictionary every year that lists which terms will be deemed ethnic slurs for the coming year. What is and what is not a slur is defined socially and changes over time.
Of course there is an argument that “Redskin” is somehow the same as “Viking” or “Aztec”. It’s not. By choosing the name, they are using a word that they would like to believe calls up the “noble warrior” but instead is a slur that Americans have been using for centuries as they drove Native Americans from their homes.
Uh, no. The classification of “redskin” as an ethnic slur is based on, e.g., standard dictionary usage, as in Merriam-Webster’s designation “usually offensive” for it.
This is no new development, either: as this article points out, various dictionaries have been classifying the ethnic descriptor “redskin” as a pejorative for over a century:
I’d be surprised if you can find a US dictionary edition within the past twenty years that doesn’t acknowledge the pejorative nature of the term “redskin”. This is most certainly not just a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon of people gratuitously seeking something to be offended about.
In fact, even people who support keeping “Redskins” as the Washington team name mostly agree that the term in ordinary usage nowadays counts as an ethnic slur, as this 2013 article notes:
So who decides whether or not something is a slur? If I were to claim that the term “white person” is actually a slur, would anyone believe me? What if I got 10,000 signatures on a petition? Should it be put to a majority-rules public referendum or do existing leaders get to choose whether to reclassify the term without input from their constituents?
No, that’s not what I said. What I said is that any survey group of fewer than 50,000 randomly sampled Americans can not contain 504 Native Americans. Do I need to walk through it again?
1% of the population of the US is Indian according to the census. This survey had a total of 500 Indians. If those 500 Indians are actually Indian, then the surveyors (who randomly surveyed Americans) had to survey a total of 50000 people (500 is 1% of 50000). It’s not only hard to argue with that, it’s impossible.
They don’t give this number, but it’s pretty damn unlikely that they surveyed 50000 people. It’s much more likely that their survey pulled up way higher than 1% of their subjects identifying as Indian.
And the reason for that higher hit rate is likely because most of those 500 Indians are pretending to be Indians. It nicely explains why polls that ascertain that those being surveyed are actually Indian, come up with a very different answer.
Yes, those are called Indians. They aren’t pretending.
Nope. The US Government has ruled that each Tribe legally gets to decide who is a “Indian”. If you are not a recognized member of a recognized tribe (USA) you are not a “Indian”.
They could well have surveys far more than 50000, since this wasnt one survey. It was ALL the surveys conducted over a five month period:
*The survey was conducted in conjunction with weekly national surveys of U.S. adults reached through a random sample of cellular and landline telephones conducted by Social Science Research Solutions of Media, Pa. Toward the end of a survey on a range of topics, respondents who identified their race as Native American were asked a series of questions on views of the Redskins team name and Native American imagery in sports. While Native Americans account for about 2 percent of the total population, the survey’s extended field period from December to April reached 504 Native American respondents.
*
44 percent of those in the final survey were “currently enrolled as a member with a Native American tribe” which means they were’t “Pretend Indians”.
And the Post used one of the most respected pollsters in the business.
Double nope. Race on the census form (which is what we’re discussing because the people pretending to be Indian are coming in at a higher rate than the census predicts) is self identified. Tribal affiliation has nothing to do with it.
I’ve been sharing a bed for two decades with someone who has only been enrolled for a few years, but has been Indian in the census since she was born.
Like I said, they could have surveyed more than 50000, but they haven’t shown their math. It’s an extraordinary number to have surveyed, and requires showing the number to believe it.
And, no 44 percent in the final survey self reported that they were currently enrolled as a member of a tribe. However, polls that actually ascertain that the person being surveyed is actually Indian have found a completely different result (cited above).
Even if they think it means “noble warrior,” that’s just another racist stereotype, like naming your math decathlon team the “Orientals” because they are smart.
And let’s not forget that it is not celebrating the heritage of the people there, and is instead used the same way animal names are used.
And, of course, the racist shit that TriPolar mentioned.
As for the OP: I’m not offended on behalf of anyone. I’m not saying I never am, but, in this case, the fact that “redskin” is a slur is just established, so it doesn’t matter one bit if no Indian found it offensive. It’s a racist slur that promotes racist actions and I do not support it.
And I am actually behind pulling the trademark–because it was known to be a slur at the time. So it was racist to name them that in the first place. And I fully support the exception in trademark law and do not see it as a freedom of speech issue. Trademarks are not merely speech.
These are fair points. Nonetheless, if the vast majority of members of the group in question think it’s not offensive then it’s not offensive regardless of any dictionary, and if it’s not offensive it’s not an ethnic slur.
I’m wondering if it depends on context. I doubt if even people who don’t find it offensive in the context of team names (and apparently various Native American athletic teams also use the name) would use it do describe individual Native Americans.
Even your various dictionary entries seem to acknowledge this, in saying things like “usually offensive” which would indicate that it’s not always offensive.