OK, you PC people, Cut. It. Out!! Now!!

The BBQ Pit
1

People who know me well know that I’m slow to temper, even keeled and usually give people the benefit of doubt when they do something I find stupid. This can probably be seen on the boards where my pit offerings are decidedly non-vitriolic and the few pit threads I’ve started are weak at best.

But now it’s just gone too far.

For the full information, I give you this article from the Washington Post, wherein it is stated:

Now label me an insensitive white guy, but I’m really sick of this! I agree that names like Washington’s “Redskins” football team are pejorative and should be changed. I just must draw a line here. When did “Braves” become offensive? Is it offensive because it is directly associated with Indians (American Indians/Native Americans)? I always thought that being labeled brave was a good thing.

OK, I’ll give you that “Braves” might be considered offensive because it is only associated with Indians. We don’t really refer do individuals from other “races” or cultures as Braves, do we? I still don’t get the “Warriors” thing. Warriors can refer to people from other cultures. I can instantly mention Chinese warriors.

Perhaps it’s the mascot? Could “Podunk High School – Home of the Warriors” just change their mascot from an Indian to a 4th dynasty Shinto warrior? (If that’s even correct.) When does this stop? Come on, people.

Referring to the Tayac Elementary School Indians, the article states:

Sorry, can’t get along with that logic. It isn’t the same. A better comparison might be the Northern High School Patriots (real school) or maybe something like “Robert E. Lee High School Confederates”. Chief Billy Tayac, quoted above, is head of the Piscataway Indian Nation. Is it offensive to refer to them as Indians? I just don’t get it.

Is the push to eliminate all traces of these names because people are so afraid that one day somebody somewhere might find such a reference mildly caustic? Is it because minority groups are finally getting the legislative power they deserve but were denied for so long and don’t know just how to flex this newfound power?

Wait, I don’t care why, I just want it to stop! Don’t get me wrong; I can’t abide by the “Al Jolson High School Mammies” or the “Armpit South Carolina High School Cotton Pickers” or such. I just thing that enough is enough! Definitely change the offensive names and references. Don’t go witch-hunting for offensive names.
[sub]I won’t even go into the expenses on already strapped schools systems associated with changing letterhead, gym floors, etc.[/sub]

2

I just read your entire post thinking, what the heck does the PV-vs-Mac controversy have to do with this? Then I got it.

Okay. Done rereading.

I’ll believe that calling a team the Indians or the Braves is discriminatory or racist when a judge makes a determination in court that calling someone an Indian or a Brave is D&R (this may have happened already). I’ll believe it’s non-D&R when we have a successful major league franchise called, for instance, the Chicago Negroes, or the Boston Butt-Ugly White Guys.

Until either of those things happen, it’s professional sports, which is so massively wrong on so many other levels that what they choose to call themselves is a silly thing to argue about.

3

One of our local high schools has teams named “The Indians”. No one much objects because the school serves an Indian reservation.

All of my life (mostly “white”) teachers, professors and others have been quick to correct me or even admonish me for calling our original inhabitants “Indians”…well I know its is based on a historical fallacy - but in the Southwest every Apache, Dine’, or Tigua I have ever known calls himself or herself an “Indian”. It’s not a racial slur!
“Redskin” and “sqaw” ARE racist words…even if “sqaw” doesn’t mean vagina…(isn’t there a Cecil collumn on that?).

Maybe in some other areas it’s different - I am sure in more politically correct places “Indian” may be a no no, but at least in places like rural New Mexico, Arizona, West Texas, Colorado…Indian people say “Indian” 80% of the time. Maybe “native” at times. You even hear phrases like “Indian Reservation”, “Indian Pride”, “Indian Gaming”, “Full Blooded Indian (FBI)”…and so on in daily use.

An Indian activist explained to me that “Native American” is really not that politically correct either, after all none of the native people really embrace being named after Amerigo Vespucci either. So he just says “Indian” for simplicity’s sake.

I’m just part Indian…actually part Mestizo…myself. Maybe someone who knows more than I will explain better.

4

Slight hijack. It’s not that PC nowadays but I’ve always liked the word “Negro”. Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s the word was always associated (to me at least) with pride and achievement issues and it just sounds so good. “I am a Negro”. It just has an elegant rising and falling sound. “Black” has that blubbery beginning “buuh” and that harsh “ACK” ending sound. African American is probably the most polite PCwise currently but it still sounds somewhat clumsy and contrived. “Colored” is (I think) rude and has that harsh “Kh” sound and that nasty mouth full marbles “urrrd” finish.

I wish Negro was PC. It sounds so much better that the alternatives. “Negro” - an elegant sounding word.
End of hijack.

5

What’s even worse is that my high school, Plantation High School in Plantation, FL had, as its mascot the Colonel, which was a spitting image of Col. Sanders from KFC.

When I was a freshman, one of my teachers led a futile crusade to get the mascot changed to an eagle, which matches the city’s local sports teams, the Plantation Eagles.

But, that got shut down.

This was in the late '80s, before the current brouhaha started.

6

All the teams at my high school, be they football, baseball, gymnastics, cricket, etc., were all called the Indians. Our school was plastered with “Go Indians!” posters, trophies with “Indians” on them, even a huge medallion in the gym with “Indians” in huge blue-and-gold letters. I haven’t checked in recently to see if they’ve gone PC or not yet, but I hope that they have the guts to stand up for their tradition.

The only thing that might be considered offensive about my school’s teams’ name is the mascot logo. It’s a side view of a stereotypical “Indian”, with the war paint on the cheeks, eagle feather sticking out from the back of his head, wearing leather pants and moccasins, carrying a tomahawk over his head in a threatening manner. But even that is drawn in a caricatured style, in a silly running pose with a big maniacal grin on his face, to enforce the idea that the opposing team was about to get “scalped”. I never found it offensive, but I suppose the school could live with that mascot removed.

I agree that new sports teams should find more creative names than the “Indians”, but teams that have had that name for years and years should be allowed to keep their names. Besides, knowing the creativity of the school staff, I shudder to think what the replacement might be.

7

My high school teams were called “The Dutchmen”. Isn’t that kind of the same thing?

I do think that tomahawk chop thing associated with the Atlanta Braves is kind of bad.

At any rate, I don’t think people ever named teams something because they didn’t like or admire that thing. You don’t see teams called The Buffalo Nazis or The Cincinnati Annoying Brothers in Law. Even if some of the names are outdated, I think that they were meant as compliments to Native Americans. At the very least, I don’t believe any insult was intended. I’m pretty sure someone will strongly disagree with me.

8

Here in Flint, MI, the school board has decided that three local schools will have to change their names. From the Indians, Braves and Arrows! PC indeed…assholes.

9

There could be, however, a couple of cool rock bands…

10

What about the Celtics, Fighting Irish, and the Vikings? Aen’t those equivalent to having Brave or Indian as a mascot?

11

You want an offensive team name? My high school’s team was called the Red Raiders. :eek: Why someone hasn’t forced them to change it yet is beyond me. Indians, Braves, and Warriors all seem fine to me and not offensive, but Red Raiders just seems over the top…

12

I hate PC. I do, however, love the flick PCU. PC is just a way of trying to control what others say. Fuck that. I also don’t use my Salad fork for the salad!!! That’ll show those facist PC freaks what’s what.

I don’t mind people taking old words and giving them new meanings. The speakers intent is more important to me than what the word may have meant at some other time when someone else used it. Language is dynamic and forever changing. Once again: Fuck PC.

DaLovin’ Dj

13

Oh God here we go.

Announced just in time for me to go home for Thanksgiving my old highschool-middleschool and the neighborhood feeder elementary school have gotten on this bandwagon.

For the record, its:
Flint Central High School Indians
Wittier Middle School Braves
Pierce Elementary Arrowheads

I’m miffed, to say the least. I can almost, maybe understand the problem with Indians/Braves (even though both schools refuse to do the cartoonish mascot deal and the high school’s offical mascot is a headress that lives in a display case by the office, donated to the school by a reservation.) I am very upset with the changing of the elementary school. Arrowheads? What’s the problem there? Its an inanimate object!

Oh…hi Xploder.

14

I do not know the actual origin of the name Red Raider, but I have always associated it with Texan cowboys (with a hint of Confederate cavalry) and not with indians, at all. (I suppose that a unit of Texas Rangers–either in the 1860s or in a 1930s movie–might have taken a nickname from their opponents on the plains, but I have never heard that suggested.)

15

No, they are not.

In all of those examples, the big difference is that those names reflect the people of the team/area in question. Celtics – Boston has a large Irish population. The Fighting Irish – Notre Dame is a Catholic institution, many of its earliest members were in fact Irish, and they embrace the name as a symbol of their own heritage, even at a time when some people used “Irish” as a slur both for Irish-Americans and Catholics in general.

Indian team mascots, on the other hand, are often associated with schools and areas that have no particular relationship to any group of actual Indian people. They weren’t saying “hey, we’re Indian and we’re proud!” One reason why Indian mascots offend some people is that it seems strikingly disingenuous that many institutions embraced their Indian mascot while doing absolutely nothing to serve, educate, or respect Indians.

It bewilders me that some people think that the protesters are somehow making this up just to be PC. I agree that not all Indian mascots are offensive, and I realize that not everyone would draw that line in the same place. But at least give some credit where credit is due – people who argue for the elimination of Indian mascots aren’t doing it just for the wacky hell of it. This is part of a larger issue about how Indians are perceived and treated in American culture.

16

What’s a Red Raider? And how is that offensive? If someone told me their team was called the Red Raiders, I wouldn’t think it was offensive. I’d think it was a cool-sounding name implying the opposing team’s impending defeat, with a little alliteration thrown in to make it sound better. That’s assuming “raider” means “one who raids”, and “raid” means “surprise attack” or “predatory operation”. Sounds OK to me.

[sub]That is unless the mascot looks anything like the stereotypical “Indian”. In which case, ignore the above.[/sub]

17

I do not know how the term African-American even came into being.Not all blacks originate from Africa.

18

No. But all the people whose ancestors were brought to the U.S. as slaves were from Africa. (I have never seen any indication that Australian Aborigines, Negritos, or Fijians were brought here in chains.)

And, of course, there are people from Africa who are not black who have come to the U.S., so the phrase is lacking in precision on several levels.

The use of the phrase, selected by a group from the rust belt, was intended to choose a term that was more like the Polish-Americans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, and similar ethnic groups who are found throughout the U.S. rust belt.

I think it was a flawed attempt, given the number of places throughout the U.S. where such enclaves do not exist (or where the inhabitants do not use that phraseology). However, it was done with good intentions. The authors were simply too close to the neighborhoods of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo to recognize that that nomenclature was not common throughout the U.S.

19

My old school, Texas Tech, uses the name “Red Raiders” for all its teams. I never thought it was anything other than a name. The official Red Raider at football games is a guy dressed more like Zoro than anything, who mounts a horse and gallops it around the field when Texas Tech scores a touchdown. I suppose that would be awkward on a basketball court.

There was/is an Air Force bomber (I think) group that calls itself the “Red Raiders” but I don’t know the background. (Saw it on Google, too lazy to dig through the site)

20

*Spritle *, I totally agree with you. The various Indian team names were chosen as compliments to the Indians. They were presumed to embody the physical, mental, and emotional skills needed to excel at athletics. (Taking Jim Thorpe as an example, that was probably a correct assumption.)

I’d be thrilled see a team named the “Fighting Actuaries.”