Obama Weighs in on Redskins Name

[IDBillzFan]

Redskins responded, and it almost makes me like Daniel Snyder a bit.

 

Senator Cantwell should be aware that there are many challenges facing Native Americans, including an extremely cold winter with high energy bills, high unemployment, life threatening health problems, inadequate education and many other issues more pressing than the name of a football team which has received strong support from Native Americans,” the statement said. “Surely, with all the issues Congress is supposed to work on such as the economy, jobs, war and health care, the Senator must have more important things to do,” the statement said.

 

Link.

[dubs]

If I'm not sure about how it will be received, I try to put it into some sort of context for myself.

 

For example, which of the following would would be appropriate to say in polite conversation:

 

A. "As a Native American, how do you feel about this topic?"

 

B. "As a redskin, how do you feel about this topic?"

 

IMO using choice B is an easy way to get into a fight.

 

Well, I guess what I am asking is what about the term is racist or offensive. What you and the prior poster did is really just say that it's offensive because it is. Again, I am not really saying you are wrong, but I am honestly not seeing it and trying to find out what's offensive about it.

[LB3]

 

 

Well, I guess what I am asking is what about the term is racist or offensive. What you and the prior poster did is really just say that it's offensive because it is. Again, I am not really saying you are wrong, but I am honestly not seeing it and trying to find out what's offensive about it.

 

Fair enough. I believe that it is often used referencing their perceived red skin. But there are various origin stories on it referring to both positive and negative beginnings. One specific telling states that it was the name used when bounties were laid on Native Americans. A person would be paid per scalp. This was at some point referred to as a red skin. But there are also stories that say it was a source of pride.

 

For me, I was told it was offensive by a Native American friend, so I generally avoid using it with the obvious exception of discussions like this. This was when I was in grade school so almost 20 years ago.

Edited February 11, 2014 by KikoSeeBallKikoGetBall

[dubs]

Fair enough. I believe that it is often used referencing their perceived red skin. But there are various origin stories on it referring to both positive and negative beginnings. One specific telling states that it was the name used when bounties were laid on Native Americans. A person would be paid per scalp. This was at some point referred to as a red skin. But there are also stories that say it was a source of pride.

 

For me, I was told it was offensive by a Native American friend, so I generally avoid using it with the obvious exception of discussions like this. This was when I was in grade school so almost 20 years ago.

 

Gotcha and thanks for sharing! It just seems to me that it's a lot of noise from a extremely small minority of folks and the vast majority of people (including Native American), don't have any issues with it. That's why I asked your opinion and that's a very good first hand account of why some do find this offensive.

 

It'll be interesting to see where this goes. Will this be another feather in the cap of the politically correct, or not? I thought the point about what Oklahoma means was a valid one, as well as time spent on the real issues facing the Native American community.

Edited February 11, 2014 by dubs

[IDBillzFan]

It'll be interesting to see where this goes. Will this be another feather in the cap of the politically correct, or not? I thought the point about what Oklahoma means was a valid one, as well as time spent on the real issues facing the Native American community.

 

I would argue that almost ALL the people who say they're offended by this aren't even Native Americans. They're just people who find it necessary to be offended by something so they can show their false sense of superiority over the world. You see the same thing on a larger scale about the first gay anything these days.

 

Rememember Jason Collins? Neither does anyone else. But for a brief moment the world's talking heads got to applaud themselves for doing something that most people do everyday without thought. Most people don't give a schitt about the first gay anything and most people don't give a schitt about the name Redskins. But that doesn't stop the Tim Graham's of the world from creating a "problem" that serves as a vehicle to opine and thereby making themselves somehow relevant to anyone stupid enough to care what they say.

[TheMadCap]

I would argue that almost ALL the people who say they're offended by this aren't even Native Americans. They're just people who find it necessary to be offended by something so they can show their false sense of superiority over the world. You see the same thing on a larger scale about the first gay anything these days.

 

Rememember Jason Collins? Neither does anyone else. But for a brief moment the world's talking heads got to applaud themselves for doing something that most people do everyday without thought. Most people don't give a schitt about the first gay anything and most people don't give a schitt about the name Redskins. But that doesn't stop the Tim Graham's of the world from creating a "problem" that serves as a vehicle to opine and thereby making themselves somehow relevant to anyone stupid enough to care what they say.

 

 

24 hour news cycle disease. They have to find SOMETHING to talk about, so they tend to make stories out of non-stories...

[B-Man]

I would argue that almost ALL the people who say they're offended by this aren't even Native Americans. They're just people who find it necessary to be offended by something so they can show their false sense of superiority over the world. You see the same thing on a larger scale about the first gay anything these days.

 

 

 

“The worst I have been treated was by northern liberal elites. The absolute worst I have ever been treated,” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida.

 

People are much more sensitive about and focused on racial differences today than they were when he was the only black student at his all-white school in Georgia, where “rarely did the issue of race come up” and people weren’t as prone to take offense.

 

Nowadays, “somebody doesn’t look at you right, somebody says something.”

 

“If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I’d still be in Savannah,” he said.

[Joe Miner]

 

Well, I guess what I am asking is what about the term is racist or offensive. What you and the prior poster did is really just say that it's offensive because it is. Again, I am not really saying you are wrong, but I am honestly not seeing it and trying to find out what's offensive about it.

 

I believe the earliest recorded usage of the term redskin comes from Indians themselves.

[3rdnlng]

I believe the earliest recorded usage of the term redskin comes from Indians themselves.

 

How.

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

 

I believe the earliest recorded usage of the term redskin comes from Indians themselves.

 

Link? Cite your sources.

[Nanker]

Paleface need 'um new team name.

[DC Tom]

Link? Cite your sources.

 

1769, during the French and Indian War, British negotiations with the Illinois tribes to switch allegiances from France to Britain. One of the Illinois chiefs refers to the Algonquins as the "skins of red" - most likely as a reference to their face paint (bright crimson).

 

Earliest reliable account of usage. Source is linguistic research done at the Smithsonian.

[keepthefaith]

It has been defined in dictionaries as offensive. From Wiki:

 

""Redskin" is a racial descriptor of disputed origin for Native Americans. Although by some accounts not originally having negative intent, the term is defined in current dictionaries of American English as "usually offensive", "disparaging", "insulting", "taboo" and is avoided in public usage with the exception of its continued use as a name for sports teams."

 

A couple guys here debated this in the PPP showdown. One guy accurately predicted and made the argument that politicians would come out and pressure the league to change the name and that the league would resist for a while. He made the point that ultimately because of public pressure and money the league would tell Snyder to change the name. That guy lost the argument in the eyes of "the judge" but is being validated as this whole thing unfolds. Speaking of the PPP showdown, seems like most of the competitors have become fine haired pussies when their turn arises.

[GG]

They're just people who find it necessary to be offended by something so they can show their false sense of superiority over the world.

 

Quite the contrary, they have a true sense of superiority over the world.

[ExiledInIllinois]

1769, during the French and Indian War, British negotiations with the Illinois tribes to switch allegiances from France to Britain. One of the Illinois chiefs refers to the Algonquins as the "skins of red" - most likely as a reference to their face paint (bright crimson).

 

Earliest reliable account of usage. Source is linguistic research done at the Smithsonian.

 

Thanks for helping cite Ives Goddard's work.

 

What needs to be explored is summed up in Goddard's last line of his work:

 

"The descent of this word into obloquy is a phenomenon of more recent times."

 

Which we can start to look @ here:

 

http://anthropology.si.edu/goddard/redskin.pdf

 

"...While Cooper's portrayal of Native Americans in books like The Pioneers was sympathetic, the portrayal of Indians created a backlash of sorts. In 1915, the poet Earl Emmons released Redskin Rimes, a book so offensive I had to double-check to make sure it wasn't a parody of the racism of that era. Emmons makes his intentions clear in the introduction of the work: "Those persons who got their idea of the Indian from Mr. Cooper have pictured him as an injured innocent. ... Those persons have acquired the wrong idea of the maroon brother." That introduction kicks off a series of poems, songs and speeches, each more offensive than the last.

 

Emmons' book was emblematic of the usage of the word "redskins" in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as the word went from being an identifying term to a derogatory slur. By the 1910s, it wasn't uncommon for filmgoers to encounter it, with the word frequently popping up in the titles of American Westerns..."

 

 

 

[DC Tom]

Thanks for helping cite Ives Goddard's work.

 

What needs to be explored is summed up in Goddard's last line of his work:

 

"The descent of this word into obloquy is a phenomenon of more recent times."

 

Which we can start to look @ here:

 

http://anthropology....ard/redskin.pdf

 

"...While Cooper's portrayal of Native Americans in books like The Pioneers was sympathetic, the portrayal of Indians created a backlash of sorts. In 1915, the poet Earl Emmons released Redskin Rimes, a book so offensive I had to double-check to make sure it wasn't a parody of the racism of that era. Emmons makes his intentions clear in the introduction of the work: "Those persons who got their idea of the Indian from Mr. Cooper have pictured him as an injured innocent. ... Those persons have acquired the wrong idea of the maroon brother." That introduction kicks off a series of poems, songs and speeches, each more offensive than the last.

 

Emmons' book was emblematic of the usage of the word "redskins" in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as the word went from being an identifying term to a derogatory slur. By the 1910s, it wasn't uncommon for filmgoers to encounter it, with the word frequently popping up in the titles of American Westerns..."

 

Yeah, language evolves.

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

 

Yeah, language evolves.

 

It sure does!

 

The name did take a pretty rough turn well before the team was founded.

[DC Tom]

It sure does!

 

The name did take a pretty rough turn well before the team was founded.

 

Not that much before. The franchise was named "Redskins" in the 1930s. The epithetical nature of "redskin" was pretty ambiguous until the popularity of dime westerns around 1880.

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

 

Not that much before. The franchise was named "Redskins" in the 1930s. The epithetical nature of "redskin" was pretty ambiguous until the popularity of dime westerns around 1880.

 

That era things were really starting to get effed up and set us back as country. To change gears a little, you have the whole Plessy (1896) thing w/"separate but equal" BS.

 

"The Supreme Court decision of Plessy v. Ferguson began its long "Jim Crow" career of "separate-but-equal" in South Carolina which perpetuated segregation even for Native American Indian communities and the notion that Native American Indians were second class citizens."

 

By the 1930's that second class status had to already be entrenched.

 

 

[Azalin]

South Park season 18 begins with their take on the Washington Redskins controversy:

 

https://variety.com/2014/tv/news/south-park-season-18-teaser-washington-redskins-1201310412/