thisnumbersdisconnected
New Member
I'm posting this in News/Current Events rather than Sports because the subject has spilled over into this category. NBC sportscaster Bob Costas has, just as the headline says, "stepped in it again," revealing his liberal leanings and making a mountain out of an ant hill (yeah, I know it's "mole hill" but this issue is even smaller than that, except in the minds of socialist politically correct extremists).
Personally, I think this subject is asinine. Comparing this name and logo to the equivalent of using the "n" word is absolutely ludicrous. Why? Because the name was used by Native American themselves to identify their differences with the white Europeans they considered inferior to themselves. Ives Goddard, Senior Linguist in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, explained in an exhaustively researched paper, indigenous peoples began calling themselves red:
"The word redskin reflects a genuine Native American idiom that was used in several languages, where it grew out of an earlier established and more widespread use of 'red' and 'white' as racial labels. This terminology was developed by Native Americans to label categories of the new ethnic and political reality they confronted with the coming of the Europeans".
Goddard writes that the English and French realized Native Americans were calling themselves "red" and "redskins" in the mid-1700s, but the English word "redskin" wasn't publicly used until a speech by President James Madison in 1807, welcoming tribal leaders from across America to the White House.
There will be arguments that, no matter the origin of the word, it is "still an epithet." An epithet is in the eye of the beholder. Socialist activists coined the word "honky" in the 60s to try to create a derogatory term that would intimidate whites. It didn't work. Why? Because we refused to be insulted by it. It fell into disuse.
And now, except for the name of the Washington NFL franchise and a few colleges that refuse to give in to the pressures to be "politically correct," the name "Redskins" lives on only as that, a sports logo. There is tremendous pressure to make the NFL franchise change its name.
I have to wonder why. After all, the Cleveland Indians logo is far more insulting than the image of the noble warrior that serves as the Washington team's identity. People need to grow up. And Costas needs to shut up, and talk about sports. Politics isn't his strong suit.
Personally, I think this subject is asinine. Comparing this name and logo to the equivalent of using the "n" word is absolutely ludicrous. Why? Because the name was used by Native American themselves to identify their differences with the white Europeans they considered inferior to themselves. Ives Goddard, Senior Linguist in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, explained in an exhaustively researched paper, indigenous peoples began calling themselves red:
"The word redskin reflects a genuine Native American idiom that was used in several languages, where it grew out of an earlier established and more widespread use of 'red' and 'white' as racial labels. This terminology was developed by Native Americans to label categories of the new ethnic and political reality they confronted with the coming of the Europeans".
Goddard writes that the English and French realized Native Americans were calling themselves "red" and "redskins" in the mid-1700s, but the English word "redskin" wasn't publicly used until a speech by President James Madison in 1807, welcoming tribal leaders from across America to the White House.
There will be arguments that, no matter the origin of the word, it is "still an epithet." An epithet is in the eye of the beholder. Socialist activists coined the word "honky" in the 60s to try to create a derogatory term that would intimidate whites. It didn't work. Why? Because we refused to be insulted by it. It fell into disuse.
And now, except for the name of the Washington NFL franchise and a few colleges that refuse to give in to the pressures to be "politically correct," the name "Redskins" lives on only as that, a sports logo. There is tremendous pressure to make the NFL franchise change its name.
I have to wonder why. After all, the Cleveland Indians logo is far more insulting than the image of the noble warrior that serves as the Washington team's identity. People need to grow up. And Costas needs to shut up, and talk about sports. Politics isn't his strong suit.
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