I’m not defending the name “Redskins”. Let’s forget The Redskins for the purposes of this discussion, I conceed that “Redskins” is inappropriate (it’s historically been a derogatory term like “nigger”, apparently). Let’s just focus on the other names like “Indians”, “Braves” “Chiefs” and “Warriors”, 'kay?
I heard this on the radio and couldn’t find a source on the internet (which means, having said this, that DDG, Google Goddess, will find 50 sources )
Apparently a professor of Native-American Studies at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, who was horribly offended by team names like “Indians”, “Warriors”, “Braves” and “Chiefs”, so he got a local team at a mostly (completely) Indian high-school to name their mascots “The Fightin’ Whites” so that we evil opressors could feel his pain.
Didn’t work. My reaction, and the reaction of everyone I’ve heard (on the radio) or told has been: Coooooooool!
“Fightin’ Whites” scans, it honors the military prowess of a group of people and frankly, I’m a little flattered.
Seriously, I’m not being sarcastic, for whatever little value I put on sports, this just struck me as cool.
Sorry Professor Littleowl (I think…I’m not positive about the name). You haven’t made me share your anguish, you’ve convinced me that you’re hypersensitive.
Fenris, who also thinks the name “The Tighty-Whities” would have been cool.
By choosing the “Fighting Whites”, the good prof missed the point. If he’s bent outta shape by things like “Braves”, “Indians”, “Chiefs”, and “Warriors”, he should have been selecting from a list like:
Infantry, Peasant Levy, Militia…
Goths, Aryans, Magyars, Celts…
Kings, Dukes, Earls…
Knights, Soldiers, Cataphracts…
Oh, wait… Some of those are already in use.
If the Prof wanted to get racial, in retalliation for the “Redskins”, he shoulda chose the “Fightin’ Honkeys”.
Except that, from the report I heard, he was specifically upset by “Braves”, “Warriors” and “Chiefs”. He claimed it marginalized Indians or something. I’m certain he’d also be upset by “Redskins” or “Reds”, but from the one report, that wasn’t his focus.
Fenris, the JANISSARY JEW! (I love that name, December!)
Well, then he definitly missed the boat. “Fighting whites” isn’t going to marginalize anything. Hell, it sounds like a uniform. “We’re the home team. Guess we’re wearing the Fighting Whites tonight…” Or maybe it’s from a laundry detergent commercial? “Get’s your underwear ‘Fighting White’.”
Eh, it’ll never catch on. At a Braves game, you can get everyone doing the tomahawk chop, but how do you get a stadium full of people to mime handing out smallpox-infested blankets?
I do think the good professor missed the boat on this one. Most white people don’t draw on their whiteness that much for their sense of self. Now, if they were called The Hegemonizing Whites, and their offense consisted mainly of paying off the refs and cheating like hell…well, okay, I’d still think that was funny. But, again, the concept of pride in my whiteness doesn’t mean much of anything to me.
Empirical data published in Sports Illustrated’s March 4, 2002 magazine at pages 64-72 in an article by S.L. Price entitled “The Indian Wars”, with a sidebar story on page 69 by Andrea Woo entitled “Polls Apart” shows that those who claim that using nicknames such as “Indians”, “Redskins” and “Braves” is offensive, lack wide support among either the majority of the Native American community or the greater country at large. The poll was conducted by the Peter Harris Research group.
The poll shows that use of such team names IS NOT offensive. Seventy five percent of Indians polled say that names and mascots using names such as “Indians”, “Redskins” and “Braves” do not discriminate against them, and 83% of Indians polled said that pro teams should continue using such names. The magazine called the poll results “surprising” and said “There is a near total disconnect between Indian activists and the Native American population on this issue.”
Yeah, some of the mascots are kinda rude. That’s just a call for a new design competition, though, complete with fan participation, contests, give-aways, and hype. In short, nothing more than a marketing opportunuty.
My high school mascot was the Lancer. I didn’t notice any outcry among people of European descent.
Perhaps he should have been more specific, such as “The Fighting Irish”, and used a figure resembling a leprechaun in a pugilistic stance. Surely the Irish community wouldn’t stand for such promotion of the stereotype of the Irish being violent, would it?
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