My policy that if the group involved finds what people are calling them offensive, or would prefer another word to be used, then we should do so. I am not a Native American. I can never know what it is like to be a Native American. Because I cannot speculate what may or may not be offensive to them, I listen to what they say is or is not offensive. There is no reason me to be randomly offensive to them, so I call them whatever they want to be called.
After all, if some guy who’s nickname is “uglybutt” wanted us to stop calling him that, as adults we should.
I agree. But we are not calling them that, we are calling a team,and no one else, that. (BTW sven, I am not pointing this at you, just trying to make a point)
This name ‘Redskin’ is not refering to Native Americans, anymore than ‘Cowboy’ is refering to cattle drivers or ‘Bengal’ is refering to tigers. Like RTFirefly said, it just sounds cool. I am not offended by it. I don’t think it perpetuates any kind of stereotype.
Puleeze! Go back as far as you will and find all the mascot/souveniers/printed matter showing Indians. It meant INDIAN-type-REDSKINS! If it didn’t mean "Native Americans, WHAT did it mean?
After all the Washington NFL franchise helmet’s depict a Native American on the side. Before that, the logo was either an arrow or the letter R with a feather and arrow attached.
The Washington NFL team will never drop its offensive nickname unless it ever gets a more enlightened owner and the franchise managed to get a bigger jerk than Jack Kent Cooke when Donald Snyder bought the team.
minoar hijack here. Owner’s name is Daniel Snyder.
As I am not able to find a history of the Redskins’ helmets or uniforms, I cannot verify that they did or didn’t have an R or arrowhead. The Kansas City Chiefs have an arrowhead, FWIW.
It refers to the large, hulking men who show up on Sunday to play the game. I suppose the name is trying to convey some aura of menace. For a portion of our American history, Indians were considered dangerous adversaries, a group not to be triffled with, you know, tough guys. All the cool team names are names of groups of tough guys.
The point is the name no longer refers to Indians, it refers to football players. Like 49-ers no longer refers to the guys who went west looking for gold, like Raiders does not mean pirates, and Dolphins does not mean fish.
So what? It pisses people off. You don’t know what it is like to be them, so you can’t postulate what they may or may not be justified to be pissed off about.
My opinion is if they lose the trademark fight, I hope to hell they don’t change the name. When you think of the Redskins, you don’t think of repressing indians, but of courage and pride. When I think Redskins, indians don’t even enter my mind. I think about football, Snyder, it’s about f-ing time, and they better kick ass this year. And working not 2 minutes from their training camp, I can’t help but think of em.
Sons of MMMMEMMEMM! (reference to city named for dead white guy)
Hail to the MMMEMMMM;
Hail MMMEMMM! (reference to incorrect outcome of event)
MMMMM on the MMMEMMM;
Fight for old MM!" (reference to dead white “discoverer”)
p.s. The St. John’s Redmen became the Red Storm over this issue. The Syracuse Orangemen have always been such - despite the term refering to the Protestant oppressors in Great Britain / Northern Ireland. Btw, Syracuse University was founded by the Methodist Church.
The Michigan State Spartans refer to the Spartans of ancient Greece despite that city state’s commitment to totalitarianism (generally known) and homosexuality (not generally known - Sparta “encouraged” homosexual relations in the ranks to increase unit loyalty and fervor.)
Aside from the Minnesota Vikings, real vikings (raiders in old Norse) did not wear hats with horns. They did use hallucinogenic drugs (from mushrooms) to increase their fierceness and dead the effects of pain during combat. (never happens in the NFL)
The “Fighting Irish” of Norte Dame is considered by many (mostly lace curtain) to be a slur. Then again, the U.S. pronunciation of the school is also an insult.
As opposed to the names, my understadning is that many native Americans take offense to the various actions of fans, mascots, etc. Fake cermeonial headdresses, face paint, war chants, and war dances as well as the reliance on warlike imagery offends many native Americans. These rituals are rooted in religious ceremonies. How ouwld folks feel if that Pope’s pointy hat and goofy crucifixes became part and parcel of rooting for the home team. Can you see it now, fans singing “Have Neghila” in the stands to cheer on the home team.
The Washington NFL franchise used a single arrow on their helmets in the 1960s. The helmets were sort of a burgundy color.
In the early 1970s, the helmets were predominantly gold with a Red R in an oval with either a feather or an arrow attached to the oval. That design only lasted a couple of years.
I watched far too much of NFL Films productions as a youth to not remember this.
Actually, the name Washington Redskins, not to mention Chief Wahoo and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, only pisses off a very tiny minority of people. Being a pissed off tiny minority is no basis to force the majority to change. “It makes me mad, I’m so sensitive and my feelings are easily hurt” is an unpersuasive argument. I know, because I tried this argument with the nuns when I got teased on the playground at school, and the nuns wisely said I ought to just toughen my hide and resolve not to let the teasing bother me.
And it is incorrect to state that one cannot “know what it is like to be them”. That is an anti-intellectual argument. That’s what we have minds and hearts for, so we can learn things and have empathy with people with experiences different from our own.
OK, I think I can relate to what Native Americans feel about the name of the Washington NFL franchise and I think it upsets me. So get rid of it.
The United States operates on the principles of majority rule and minority rights. Doesn’t the minority in this situation have any right to complain? I suppose not according to PatrickM. They should just tough it out and hope it will make them a better person. There has only been over 500 years of oppression of Native Americans in North Americans. I suppose another century or so won’t hurt them will it?
Is there some sort of threshhold that a group is supposed to reach in terms of numbers before it is allowed to be offended? Have African-Americans reached that thershhold? Have Latinos?
Shouldn’t the US as a society be above using a derogatory nickname for a football team? I guess it’s not derogatory enough by PatrickM’s standards.
Not entirely true. You need to look up the difference between empathy and sympathy .
And, living in Akron, OH, just south of Cleveland, I find Chief Wahoo much more offensive than the “Redskins.”
But I hve “sympathy” for the fans and the teams that have been used to these names for years and the tradition associated with the names.
Hey, everbody can pissed off about whatever they want. But I just can’t see Team Names an example of oppression. And I don’t see the name ‘Redskin’ as being at all derogatory.
Dry said “I have no problem with “Redskins”. If I were starting a team, I wouldn’t name it that now, but I don’t think it’s a problem warranting a name change” I agree.
It’s too bad the old Atlanta Crackers baseball team isn’t around anymore. I don’t have anything to be pissed off about.
I agree with Bob Cos. The term “redskin” is a slur, and therefore is not an appropriate team name. “Brave,” “indian” and “chief” are not slurs, and anyone who takes offense at those names is being hypersensitive, in my view.
I vote to bring back the Crackers… as long as they don’t have a beer-swilling, tobacco-juice-stained-bib-overall-wearing mascot on top of the dugout.
So because BobT and some percentage of Native Americans are offended by the name and logo of the Washington Redskins, the team should change the name. That’s a dictatorship of, by and for the minority. It’s not going to happen.
Of course the minority has the right to complain. What the minority doesn’t have is the right to have the majority automatically change its behavior in response to the minority’s complaint that their collective feelings have been hurt. Oh boo hoo. Get over it.
No one has yet been oppressed by a sports team logo. The majority will not be dictated too by the minority when it comes to having the minorities’ feelings hurt.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by BobT
Is there some sort of threshhold that a group is supposed to reach in terms of numbers before it is allowed to be offended?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by BobT
Certainly. It may sound snide of me to say so, but does the concept of majority rule confuse you? The minority has to convince the majority. To date the minority has not done so. This is a highly unscientific survey, but at Game 4 of the 1997 World Series, which I attended, I estimate that 30,000 of the 43,000 people in attendence were happily wearing clothing with a Chief Wahoo logo, and there were about 30 protestors against the logo. That’s a 1000-1 ratio in favor of the logo.
Shouldn’t the allegedly offended and oppressed minority have some obligation to timely object to the allegedly offensive logo? As has already been posted, the Redskins football team has been using that nickname since the 1930’s. Now, 70 years later, the allegedly offended and oppressed minority finallyl wake up and want the nickname changed? Does the phrase, “you snooze, you lose” mean anything? In legal parlance, the phrase is that the statute of limitations has expired, but it means the same thing.
Note well that I am not talking about real oppression. The Native Americans face real hardships in terms of poverty and lack of education. However, sports team logos do not contribute one whit to such people’s problems.
The statute of limitations has not expired because trademarks have to be renewed at set intervals. As times change, attitudes toward racial stereotyping change as well.
Also in 1930, there was no organized political voice for Native Americans. One exists now and it’s complaining.
People didn’t complain about slavery in the US for the first century of it. Then people started to in the early 1800s. Did abolitionists lose their right to complain because they didn’t object quickly enough.
Thanks for correcting me about statute of limitations in regards to trademark law BobT. Nonetheless, the fact that a trademark has been renewed several times, without objection, ought to be taken into consideration if and when objections to it are eventually raised.
Your point about the organized political voice for Native Americans assumes that all Native Americans have always been offended by the Redskins’ logo, and just weren’t galvanized to do anything about it until now. I doubt that assumption very much. I doubt that all, or even a majority, were offended by the Redskins logo in the 1930’s, or that a majority of Native Americans, to say nothing of the rest of the Americans, are offended by it now.
To say that people didn’t complain about slavery from the first isn’t accurate either, or don’t you think the slaves themselves were opposed to the practice from the very first? Slaves, as the victims of slavery, didn’t have to be educated about their victimhood with regard to slavery, in stark contrast to some current Native Americans, who have to be educated, and I would say mis-educated, about how sports team logos have supposedly denigrated them.
Not wanting to add anything to the debate because PatrickM and I obviously disagree and it’s doubtful that we’re going to change, there have been some interesting developments in the Washington NFL franchise trademark case.
The first appeal against the trademark was filed by a Native American group back in 1992. The trademark was first granted in 1967. So the NFL team is arguing that the time to complain has passed.
Also the California DMV recalled license plates that used variations of “Redskin”. The owners complained, but there isn’t much they can do about that as you don’t have the constitutional right to a license plate.
