NO MORE REDSKINS
 

The government yanked the patent/copyright of the Redskins, essentially killing the name.

well, maaaaaybe.

it's happened once before, and overturned on appeal (due largely to a technicality) AND they're allowed to keep their trademark rights while they appeal. I believe that eventually he should and will lose this stupid fight, but it will be slow and bloody all the way. U-G-L-Y.

Alternatives

I don't care what they call them. They suck. Suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

I dunno, they did a pretty good number on Custer.

They should change the name to The Savages

The Contacted Indigenous Peoples.

What about the peanuts? Will we have to change the name of the peanuts? :nuts:

The Kangaroos' Natural Predator

The Sunburns.

The Potatoes

The Erythemics

Yes. :thumb:
Nightmares are made of this
Who am I to disagree
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something...

:snort:

The Political Correctness

.

Classic, is that you? Yay! :)

Love the new logo. I'm still leaning towards redskin peanuts, though. It's a tough choice.

The Foreskins

Stewart Lee calls it 'institutional politeness'

Because however much we rail against it, and however many silly PC stories there are - it is a nicer world where people don't feel comfortable shouting nigger and kike.

The Washington Motherfucking Ofays

Nonsense, I don't believe it. Someone decides we must call kids mentally challenged, because retarded carries a stigma. So what do people do when they hear mentally challenged? They translate to retarded in their head and any stigma they had attached or accepted is dragged along to the new phrase. All they've accomplished is giving more ammo to the PC Patrols to further divide people.

I think mentally challenged is as bad :p

If people find it upsetting and degrading to be called retarded, then I'd rather know that they find it upsetting and degrading and would also rather know what they would prefer to be called.

People fight so hard for their right not to have to think about the terms they use about other people.

Language changes and evolves. Some people get over the top hysterical and choose to take offence at anything - but sometimes the words in common currency are actually quite offensive and it is no bad thing to update them.

It's like the term 'half caste'. That was perfectly acceptable when I was growing up. It is not acceptable now - and for good reason. It has a very racist meaning and origin.


Oh, and btw: there are no PC patrols - PC is an idea; it isn't a government agency.

No, half-caste simply means mixed race. There's no racism in that description. The racism is what racists think when they hear or use that term. Which is exactly my point, whatever phrase replaces half-caste will mean the same thing, and that thing will depend on your view.
You can't run away from it by changing acceptable terms, you have to confront it. Yeah, half-caste, so what motherfucker? :haha:

No PC Patrols? What are you new to the internet? C'mon, they're as plentiful as grammar Nazis. I've met a bunch in real life to, they are particularly plentiful at school board meetings, community volunteer committees, youth activities organizations, and the like.

The Crackers.

If, as some dictionaries suggest, Caste comes from he Latin Castus meaning pure, then I can see how half-caste could be deemed offensive. Just because it has been used to mean mixed race for some time and sometime in an inoffensive way, doesn't mean it is essentially inoffensive or acceptable today.

Does that make the government an Indian giver?

Essentially, the perceived hurtfulness of a name is inversely proportionate to how well that group is doing. When a group is doing well, call them anything and it is not a problem. Whitey? Call us whatever you like. When was the last time people worried about offending (North American) Jews? They aren't offended by terminology, because as a group, they're doing great. Japanese? No problem. American Indians Native Americans? Well they have some problems it seems, so we'd better watch ourselves, take some caution. Blacks? We can't even SETTLE on a daily terminology, every single word is treading on lines.

Therefore, if the majority feels that a group is to be treated with political correctness, that group should take deep offense. "Don't worry about us, we're doing fine."

It isn't about the majority - so much as it is about the general power differential.

Native Americans and black Americans, are still living with the cultural and economic fallout of genocide and slavery, Jim Crow and lynchings, and dehumanisation.

Jewish Americans are not as economically or culturally weakened in America.

Over here, in Europe, people still worry about offending Jews - because that legacy is still raw. People in Britain still worry about offending the Irish, or Indians, because those legacies are still raw.

People get het up because they're 'not allowed' to use words they've used all their lives. It's uncomfortable to have to change speech patterns. But I for one don't want to use words about other people that those other people find hurtful, unless I am consciously trying to hurt them.

When i was growing up, it was acceptable to say paki - it isn't now. Why? because it is/was demeaning and belittling and used as a way to cause hurt and offence to anybody from India or Pakistan..

I Like that it isn't acceptable anymore to say that word. Because nor is it considered ok to spraypaint 'pakis go home' on the walls of their houses, nor is it acceptable to tell racist jokes about them (what's black and brown and looks good on a paki? A rottweiler) while they live in a state of perpetual fear.

Waaaaaaahhhh I can't call children retarded, i have to use a different word. Waaaaahhhh I have to think for a fucking second what terminology I use. Waaaahhh people might get annoyed with me if I get it wrong.

In my own experience, most people don't get annoyed until the person using the out of date, no longer acceptable word digs their heels in and refuses to use a different one.

I disagree with this. Words have power and the words we choose to use carry multiple connotations. The word 'retard' carries connotations beyond the mental capacity of the person being described. It carries connotations of being stunted, of something preventing that person from becoming complete.

It's also a fuck of a lot harder to turn the phrase 'learning disabled' into a catchy insult to throw across a playground. People still use the word retard as an insult. But now the doctors and teachers and other people in official capacities aren't sharing the same word that the bullies in the playground are using.

Half-caste is offensive, because it refers to the caste system in India.
It is not possible to be half in one caste and half in another. It describes someone who belongs nowhere, because they are rejected by the castes that each of their parents belong to.

It's like the term mulatto for people of mixed race/ dual heritage/ bi-racial, whathaveyou. It's just a word. But although there is some debate over when and where the word came about, for years it was generally understood to mean mule. The offspring of a horse and a donkey, useful only for hard work, unable to reproduce, neither nowt nor summat.

Why a word is used and its etymology is important. It means you can decide whether to use it or not. I wouldn't use the term half-caste because I know what it implies.

Why is it so difficult to have the consideration to refer to people as they want?

Beats me, Spexx.

To be fair, different people sometimes want different things.

Not to mention that if some group of people, let's say some sports team, wants to be called something like say the Redskins, you might think why is it so difficult to have the consideration to refer to people as they want? But nooooooooooooooo, somebody's going to say we don't like what you want to be called even though no one is calling them that. Those who make political correctness demands on their own behalf invariably start making demands about what others are called, whether THEY want them to or not, ad nauseum. Political correctness goes from being an instrument of self protection to being a means of controlling others. Some people abuse power to control others, some abuse wealth, those with neither have found that abusing political correctness so easily sways sheeple into bolstering their control over others. The political correctness patrols are quintessential hypocrites.

To me, it's not about being offensive, it's about feeling appropriate shame at our past. Having a team called the Redskins is like having a team called the Doodieheads. It's like a grown man telling you his name is "Billy Boy." It harkens to a less mature time, and we should be embarrassed not at the words themselves, but at our past immaturity. Sometimes you have to change the words just because you want to distance yourself from your past.

That's jump on the bandwagon peasant talk. People are called white (Caucasian-ruddy complexion) , black, and Mexicans even sing about their color in pop culture songs like Piel Morena (brown skin).

When relating medical information it starts with e.g. I have a 23 y.o. black female ..., in that order, because age takes precedence over race which takes precedence over gender when it comes to relative importance of other information in medical context.

Yet this generation is not supposed to call ANYONE red skin because it was used as a derogatory comment how long ago? And how exactly am I responsible for that? How is a sports team that chose its name with pride mocking it? Do you think the US government put a Native American heads on its one cent coin, five cent coin, in 2001 on a commemorative silver dollar, and on previous gold coins calling them Indian head coins just to mock them?

Impractical vocabulary changes are a panacea, an easy out for sheeple, throw a dog a bone because it's too much like work to change actual circumstances. If you think you should be embarrassed by the past, be embarrassed by the white trash reckoning you haven't evolved out of that attributes what the passage of time and fading memories are accomplishing to your changes in vocabulary so you can feel good about yourself.

"In God We Trust" is still on our currency; because, it has protected historical accuracy status. There's no shame in taking an historically accurate negative and trying to turn it into a positive by being able to point to it and say look how far we've come rather than just trying to delete it. Lazy, lazy sheeple.

*raises cultural difference flag*

retarded has entirely different levels of offensiveness in UK and US.

And yet you most definitely would not say, "I have a 23 y.o. red male," or "a 64 y.o. yellow female..." The world changes, and refusing to accept that just paints a person as old, whose opinion will be removed by attrition if not adaptation.

Striving for that kind of brevity with understanding is the current direction in most forms of communication. Just read a typical text message. Political correctness often undermines such practical considerations to put the interests of a few above the interests of the many even when they're in need. Leaders of any age are people of vision, they get the big picture and avoid the mistakes of the past by not living in it. They accept change by living in the present; but, that doesn't mean they have to concur with it as being the best direction for the future.

Followers of any age are happy just riding the bandwagon and leaving the driving to someone else...

This is it, I agree. Hence nothing to do with "what people want to be called" but entirely about what the majority believes about language, themselves, and their fellow man. In order it's 1) Address My Own Guilt, 2) Shame Others, 3) Assert Which Beliefs We Must Share, and way way way way way down on the list is 4) Help Others by Making Them Feel Better About Their Condition.

As we are addressing history, "Mentally Retarded" was a scientific term along with "Idiot", "Moron" and "Imbecile".

Also, "Black" was adopted as a term because "Negro" was offensive; "Negro" was adopted because "Colored" was offensive"; and "Colored" was adopted because "Black" was offensive. This is a game that cannot be won, and the only people who have actually been helped are the majorities who get to feel better about themselves, for thinking they have really done something, when in fact they have done fuck-all.

Each generation changes the words that are acceptable and the words that aren't.

The reason negro became offensive, is because of how that word was used, and what it it meant - not just a simple description of skin colour, but a delineation of racial status. That was replaced by a new word - which then became offensive because of how it was used.

It's about being sensitive to how words are and have been used.

Not so long ago. Only just out of living memory. And used to describe a people who were the victims of an appalling genocide, by the people who committed that genocide.

Words have power.

@ Monster: I did not know that.

All of whom are dead and gone: "One does not heal the past by dwelling there. We heal the past by living fully in the present."
Then why didn't they talk their way out of becoming victims? "Talk is cheap."

I said words have power - I didn't say they had bullets.

Ergo "sticks and stones may break my bones; but, names can never hurt me."

Do you remember when UT started a thread to demonstrate that by inviting everyone to say whatever they wanted about him, call him whatever they wanted?

Is it your belief that this can only work with individuals and not with groups?

I think it's contextual.

The cultural context of the insult along with current and historic power disparities.

There are people alive today whose grandparents lived with the direct effects of a policy of ethnic cleansing in America. They themselves may be living with the ongoing effects of that policy.

It's all well and good to hold your hands up and say, hey, wasn't me - fuhget about it already. Little difficult to forget about it if you're living on a reservation with massive unemployment levels and the broken remnants of a shattered culture - surrounded by the grandchildren of the ones who shattered that culture and killed your ancestors in a vicious and uncompromising landgrab - and who still incidentally commemorate that act of genocide with a cartoon picture of a 'Redskin', feather headdress and all, as the mascot for a football team.

I don't particularly think you should feel shame for what your forebears did. I don't feel shame for the appalling things my forebears did to various native populations around the globe.

But I think you owe a little sensitivity. You (and I) are living with the fruits of those actions. Your country was built on the suffering and loss of the native population of that land, as well as the kidnapped and displaced population of slaves. Not so very long ago. You are, after all, a very young nation.

You remember the good stuff. You remember the things that make you proud - you venerate the founding fathers and the constitution they wrote. Yet you expect the descendants of those who fell in the wake of that nation building to just let their memories, their history fade by the wayside.

So you believe in punishing the children for the sin of the fathers, to the third and fourth generation perhaps?

Does that make you feel better?

Wtf are you talking about? In what way have I suggested anybody be punished?

We're talking about not using the name 'redskins' for a football team. If you consider that 'punishing the children for the sin of the fathers, to the third and fourth generation', then your sense of cultural entitlement is beyond ridiculous.

The third and fourth generations of the native Americans are still living with the fallout of your great grandparents' actions but you can't bear the idea of not being allowed to use the word redskins.

Ffs.

You have no knowledge whatsoever about whether or not my great grandparents ever resided in this country; yet, you would curtail my freedom of expression over a mere assumption on your part.

Congratulations, you just qualified as a political correctness Nazi.

I'm not talking about your great grandparents specifically I'm talking about that generation of Americans - in much the same way I referred to 'you' being a young country.

Whatever man. This is fuck all to do with your freedom of expression. Nobody made word red skin illegal.

Well, since you put it that way, you've sweet talked me into remaining your sexobon buddy.

ha! Then all is well with the world :p

When it comes down to it, most of us can make almost anything an insult to someone. For instance, some people feel insulted/annoyed when someone suggest they should have a blessed day. I get the very valid points everyone has made here, but in the end it comes down to treating others how you'd like to be treated yourself.

If you don't care if others refer to you as 'that fucking arsehole', then by all means go ahead and call everyone you meet a fucking arsehole. You might find you end up with no friends after a while though.

That's just my thoughts anyway.

When the rest of the country thinks about Washington DC, just about the last image to pop into their heads is that of the Native American Indian. It's a really stupid team name for that reason alone. Call them the politicians, or beaurocrats, or blowhards. We have the Capitals hockey team. We used to have the Senators. We even had the Bullets, which was accurate at the time. The team name should reflect the city culture. This area has virtually nothing to do with Indians when compared to other US cities. Plus, it's needlessly offensive.

that guy looks just like classicman

A little learning for Glatt.
 

I'm sure no one has ever accused you of being a man of vision, of getting the big picture of the relationship of past to present to future. Teams weren't always named after city associated images, the Redskins didn't originate in Washington, DC, and there's a demonstrable chain of events linking the team name to honorable if not noble origins.

When you advocate not using the name Redskins, you're advocating dropping the rich heritage of a Native American of a previous generation, one once called the Patron Saint of America, to satiate the whining of the current generation sponging off that heritage with attention whoring political correctness abuses in a futile grasp at control: Native American Heritage Cannibalism.

So - they admired the native Americans and appropriated a bunch of their customs and notable figures for their political club. It was a bit of a thing at the time.

The actual native Americans weren't involved though, were they? Tamanend wasn't involved, was he?

This isn't about 'dropping the rich heritage of a Native American of a previous generation'. It's about not using the name red skins. None of us know what Tamanend would have thought about the name redskins. My guess is he wouldn't see it as a compliment.

It's like an English political group admiring Gandhi, and over the years they end up giving the nickname 'the pakis' to a football club and then insisting that has something to do with Gandhi.

I hope they do have to change the name. Not because of any of the reasons stated here, though.

I just fucking hate that team. Always have.