— Even after admitting that 1) most Native Americans weren’t bothered by the name of the DC football team in the slightest, and 2) that those who use the name now naturally don’t intend it as a slur –a fact made all the more clear in that it is, when coupled with “Washington”, a referent that attaches itself to the professional football team, not to the Trail of Tears or Wounded Knee. If you missed his gloriously treacly lecture, you can watch it now:
So in essence, in a brief, sanctimonious bit of politically correct airtime shoehorned unnecessarily and infuriatingly into a halftime program during Sunday Night Football, Bob Costas — who waited 30+ years into his sportscasting to career to realize how offended he was by such a “slur” (and yet, only several days after the man who sat in Reverend Wright’s church listening to diatribes against both Whitey and the Jews decided to chime in — coincidentally, no doubt!) — made a two-fold argument: 1) that he would be offended for the stupid Natives who were either too stupid or too confused to feel the outrage for themselves, requiring a pasty white champion to speak for them; and 2) that even though we know those who refer to the team, the Washington Redskins, don’t intend it as a slur — having not used it in reference to anything other than the football team, which is comprised of no Native Americans to my knowledge — they nevertheless could, and if they did, then it would be a slur, even though they don’t, so it really isn’t — except always potentially. And we must guard against future thought crimes by demonizing current usages. To preserve the dignity of those who have in significant numbers rejected the call for them to express unified ethnic outrage.
All of which is typical of the liberal imperialist mindset — which seems lost on them, so busy are they accusing America itself of being an imperialist or colonialist nation.
But that aside, TheRightScoop highlights an interesting article out of U Penn about the origins of the term “redskin.” Which, it turns out, was a way Natives used to describe and label themselves:
I think that it is well established that redskin is taken by most people today to be disparaging. What is more interesting is whether it has always been so, as Harjo et al., as well as various others, claim. One interesting piece of evidence is the origin of the name Washington Redskins. In 1933, George Preston Marshall, the owner of the team, which was then located in Boston, renamed it the Boston Redskins in honor of the head coach, William “Lone Star” Dietz, an American Indian.³ When the team moved to Washington in 1937 it was renamed the Washington Redskins. George Marshall clearly did not consider the name disparaging.
— So. There’s your intent, right there. But to the politically correct rabble rousing identity politics industry, such things matter little. Having declared the term derogatory, they then cite how the term is believed to be derogatory as proof that it is. Which is the kind of thinking that works with leftist language thieves, but that significantly fails with intentionalists.
But what about the intent prior to the naming of the team to which the sign now attaches, and the signifier refers? Surely there must be so horrific slur about which George Marshall was unaware — and so the post-structuralists and textualists were well within their rights to declare that “reasonable people” could refer back to prior usages, that, to borrow from Derrida, the signifier is haunted by the ghost of all its signifieds, an arcane way of saying that every possible meaning of a word that has had many is legitimately available at all times, despite context, intent, or anything of the sort. (This is very similar to the argument Think Progress made concerning the late Tony Snow’s use of “tar baby”)?
And while I would argue that, even were that the case, the usage intended by Marshall, coupled with the contemporary referent as a professional DC football team, not a barbarian scalper with his eyes on annihilation of the white man (as seen from the racist perspective often attributed to the white men who don’t follow the President’s — or Costas’s — ostentatious and opportunistic grasp at easy grace), make distant, prior iterations of the term insufficient to trouble contemporary usage, the beauty of all this preposterous posturing is that I don’t have to. And that’s because it turns out the term is merely the English translation of a term of self identity used by Natives themselves.
The term redskin of course goes much farther back than 1933. The details of this history have recently been explored by Ives Goddard of the Smithsonian Institution, in a paper conveniently available on-line. Some of the evidence is available in greater detail on Goddard’s web site. You can read speeches by the Meskwaki chief Black Thunder and the Omaha chief Big Elk in which the expression redskin is used, and early nineteenth century examples of the Meskwaki usage of terms meaning redskin and whiteskin.
I won’t review the evidence in detail because Goddard’s paper is short enough and accessible enough that if you are interested you should read it yourself. I’ll just summarize it. Goddard shows that the term redskin is a translation from native American languages of a term used by native Americans for themselves. Harjo’s claim that it “had its origins in the practice of presenting bloody red skins and scalps as proof of Indian kill for bounty payments” is unsupported by any evidence.? The term entered popular usage via the novels of James Fenimore Cooper. In the early- to mid-nineteenth century the term was neutral, not pejorative, and indeed was often used in contexts in which whites spoke of Indians in positive terms. Goddard concludes:
Cooper’s use of redskin as a Native American in-group term was entirely authentic, reflecting both the accurate perception of the Indian self-image and the evolving respect among whites for the Indians’ distinct cultural perspective, whatever its prospects. The descent of this word into obloquy is a phenomenon of more recent times.
So to call “redskins ” a slur, one must, like Costas, our President, and a host of other language looters on the academic and activist left, discount it’s origination as a tribute to a particular Indian, but one must further argue that the actually slur itself was invented and perpetuated by Natives self-identifying.
But no worries, all you stupid drunk noble savages too ignorant to champion yourselves: Bob Costas, who is so white he could go naked for Halloween as a blizzard, will to the work for you.
After all, that’s what caring liberals do for the poor wretched souls they presume to lord over for their own good.
If they want to rename the team in tribute to me, they can call it the Washington Pale Blue Skins.
– Costas is a closet commie hoping for relevance. He would fit right in at Aholes-R-Us headquarters.
if Native Americans would protest this sort of insensitivity by cleaning up their yards and getting a job I think it would go a long way towards advancing their cause
– The gift that keeps on stealing:
HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away.
Please do fuck off, rodent.
I fell asleep during the game and missed this. Glad I always fall asleep during Sunday football games.
Costas is a closet commie hoping for relevance.
So . . . not a poster-child for the intellectual decadence of the modern Greek? Modern Greeks may cheer the thought, should they find out — and still find time to cooperate with the Israelis’ need to practice long-range flight and attack. Anything that will irk the Turk, y’know, to say nothing of their desperate need for friends with infusions of cash against their on-going bankruptcy crises.
– Squid I look at the rodents posts as sort of textual kitty litter, good for clearing out the cat shit and lint if nothing else.
I see in this post that Bob Costas has come out against “Redskins,” the nickname of the Washington football team. As from a pulpit, he preaches that the name is an “insult” and “slur.” I remember when he was host of the Olympic Games, or at least the television coverage of them. In broadcasts past, East Germany had always been called “East Germany.” But Costas seemed to delight in doing something new: referring to the country as “the German Democratic Republic.” This was a vicious totalitarian regime, of course. It was neither democratic nor a republic, and, as wags said, it was not quite German either, given rule from Moscow.
For my money, “Redskins” is a lot more defensible, and a lot less offensive, than “German Democratic Republic.”
link
They certainly should change the name of the Washington Redskins.
I find the word “Washington” deeply offensive.
I wonder why there isn’t a ruckus about the Chicago BlackHawks ?
Maybe people think the team was named after a helicopter.
I believe I saw my native-American wife just last week helping her mother with the yard work.
I hear ya, bg bear. We live on the Rez and it’s always quite tidy. Surprisingly, just about everyone has a job with the county or the city.
Perhaps the “Anacostia Deficits” would be better
The “Essential Workers,” anyone?
potomac proggtards
The state of Washington finds both the Redskins and Washington, DC to be deeply offensive because of their respective records.
The DC Tyrants.
The Beltway Bullshit
The Potomac Pissants
Largo Laymedowns . . .
Landover Unders . . .
Washington Wampumites . . .
Where in American culture has the term “redskin” ever been commonly used as a slur. Injun, maybe. Firewater cracks, sure. But redskin? I’ve never heard it.
Further, would actual racists call their team the Niggers? Or the Spics?
As an even smaller percentage of the US population than blacks or hispanics, I think Washington state residents have all the ingredients of an aggrieved minority.
What?
Tribal names and Indian mascots are the most popular sports team names in the USA. My mom’s high school (class of ’51) have been the “Indians” since their founding. Mine was the Warriors.
I still have a Cleveland Indians hat just because it has my favorite mascot of all time: Chief Wahoo.
Sheesh, this faux controversy is just like all of those “dog whistles” the Left keeps hearing in regular, inoffensive words used to describe Obama and/or his policies.
It’s like doing a maze backwards – when you start at “raaaacist!” and then link it back to a common, word it’s so much easier then finding actual instances of racism.
***Maybe Costas would prefer the name “Tightskins” which could be used to describe folks like him who have had their plastic surgeon tighten up all the saggy, wrinkly stuff between their ears.
Actually, I expect this entire issue to become moot after the NFL (and possibly other sports leagues) simply decide to offer team names to the highest-bidding sponsors.
Expect a not-too-distant Super Bowl to feature, say, “Oracle” vs. “Pepsi”.
IIRC severalof the Japanese major league baseball teams have corporate rather than city sponsorship but they still use mascot names. Example they are the “Yomiuri Giants” not, the “Tokyo Giants”.
My favorite being the Hiroshima Toyo Carp
The Washington ChiComs, then.
I have mentioned this here before, I still like the late Andy Rooney’s suggestion of Fedskins.
I like that, too.
This latest kerfuffle needs to be understood as a sort of last act of a desperate, dying industry trying to prove to itself and the world that it still matters.
That it’s happening in the sports media speaks volumes.
Costas is such a tool.
Costas : ” Due to its sordid racist history the name Redskins is an intolerable sickening hate slur”.
America: ” Go home grandpa. You’re drunk. And old. “
I think Washington’s new team name should be the “Fat old fat male incompetent fucking liars who rob you with threat of force every chance they get gang.”
ot
David Burge ?@iowahawkblog 2h
Curious; when did the John F Kennedy wing of the Democratic party get taken over by the Lee Harvey Oswald wing? @politicoroger
link
If pasty white leftists aren’t there to protect the stupid minorities from themselves who will?
In honor of the memory of the blessed st. trayvon of the hoodie, whom could have been Obama’s son, I suggest the name Washington Asscrackers.
When watching the ‘fireside’ chats after the Olympic day..and Bob would be interviewing someone…chairs side by side…I noticed his seat cushion was thicker than the guest atheletes. I’m denounce my shortist thinking
He probably has tender piles. He’s old. He sits a lot. It happens. Someone should buy him a tube of PH and a donut, the poor bastard.
Not the kind that has sprinkles on it.
Finally, today, I get to crack a smile. That’s why I come here. Thanks~!
Follow the money.
Y’all don’t understand. Costas feeeels deeper and more completely than the average human.
It’s ‘cuz of his essential superiority. Basically, what needs to happen is zip your lips and try and learn, ya dumb Neanderthals.
The WaPo wants them to go with a “chicken” logo and call themselves “The Washington Griffins” which they probably thought was all Iran-loving but isn’t [pdf].
PETA wants to keep the “Redskins” but go vegan.
Here At The Western World
@ page 45 potpl
Living within the truth, as humanity’s revolt against an enforced
position, is, on the contrary, an attempt to regain control over one’s
own sense of responsibility. In other words, it is clearly a moral act,
not only because one must pay so dearly for it, but principally
because it is not self-serving: the risk may bring rewards in the form
of a general amelioration in the situation, or it may not. In this
regard, as I stated previously, it is an all-or-nothing gamble, and it is
difficult to imagine a reasonable person embarking on such a course”
merely because he or she reckons that sacrifice today will bring
rewards tomorrow, be it only in the form of general gratitude. (By
the way, the representatives of power invariably come to terms with
those who live within the truth by persistently ascribing utilitarian
motivations to them – a lust for power or fame or wealth – and thus
they try, at least, to implicate them in their own world, the world of
general demoralization.)
If living within the truth in the post-totalitarian system becomes
the chief breeding ground for independent, alternative political
ideas, then all considerations about the nature and future prospects
of these ideas must necessarily reflect this moral dimension as a
political phenomenon. (And if the revolutionary Marxist belief
about morality as a product of the ‘superstructure’ inhibits any of
our friends from realizing the full significance of this dimension
and, in one way or another, from including it in their view of the
world, it is to their own detriment: an anxious fidelity to the postulates
of that world view prevents them from properly understanding
the mechanisms of their own political influence, thus paradoxically
making them precisely what they, as Marxists, so often suspect
others of being – victims of ‘false consciousness’.)
– I still don’t understand what all the hullabaloo over a team calling itself after a brand of potato is about.
@ page 49
In societies under the post-totalitarian system, all political life in the
ditional sense has been eliminated. People have no opportunity
o express themselves politically in public, let alone to organize
litically. The gap that results is filled by ideological ritual. In such
a situation, people’s interest in political matters naturally dwindles
and independent political thought, in so far as it exists at all, is seen
y the majority as unrealistic, far-fetched, a kind of self-indulgent
arne, hopelessly distant from their everyday concerns; something
admirable, perhaps, but quite pointless, because it is on the one
hand entirely utopian and on the other hand extraordinarily
dangerous, in view of the unusual vigour with which any move in
hat direction is persecuted by the regime.
Yet even in such societies, individuals and groups of people exist
ho do not abandon politics as a vocation and who, in one way or
another, strive to think independently, to express themselves and in
some cases even to organize politically, because that is a part of their
attempt to live within the truth.
The fact that these people exist and work is in itself immensely
important and worthwhile
“It’s ‘cuz of his essential superiority. Basically, what needs to happen is zip your lips and try and learn, ya dumb Neanderthals. ”
Our man Keith O used to think like that. It took him five long years to burn his bridges but he got ’em all.
– Then I an across this.
an = ran
I Ran
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIpfWORQWhU :
OK. Who the Hell is Bob Costas? Never heard of him.
From Sultan Knish…
I almost read that as “go as a Blizzard”, which is a horrifying thought. What flavor of DQ treat would a naked BC be? Nipple hair and junk sweat?
Further proof that NBC has fully embraced its sanctimonious idiocy. They’re trying very hard to narrow the gap between the “ms” version and itself. I can certainly see why, given msNBC’s stellar ratings.
Revolutionary progress, like evolutionary progress ,is a bunch of flailing and failing that ultimately does nothing to remove you from the cruel clutches of nature.
A tribute to…a horse, with a politically incorrect name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaNKlWWeeg
I ran = Anne Rand
Ayne Ram
Perhaps “Colored-Skins” would be copacetic with everyone as in NAACP. Not sure what the emblem should be though. I suggest not going back to the spear that they used back in the day.
..and we shouldnt impose or assume offense when none is intended. Just look at the stats.
My totally uneducated, lowbrow response: “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Ah, the joys of a wealthy, modern, first world country.
Iraa-a-an, Iraaan’s so farrr a-waaa-aa-aay…
Put your hands together ladies and gentlemen for the Washington Noble Nonwhite Indigineous Populations Who Flourished in PreColoumbian Times.
I’m thinking Barack would order red, because it goes better with $100 Angus burgers.
Wrong thread, obviously. Shit.
happyfeet says October 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm if Native Americans would protest this sort of insensitivity by cleaning up their yards and getting a job I think it would go a long way towards advancing their cause – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=51537#comments
OMFG…Ok, we know he’s a griefer, an abortion advocate, probably gay?…But now? he’s gone full blown proggtard. I used to actually like the electric hamster.
Ever been ON a reservation feets? Normally nice and tidy, with the few exceptions of course, but they exist everywhere.
THIS time I’m not misreading you. Fuck off Griefer.
Jeff nails this here, where he says ( paraphrasing, hope I have it right? ) that our alleged betters are trying to control the narrative. I think it’s slipping away from them, but what do I know?
There are too many blind pigs ( see Louisiana ) for us to deal with individually. I have an idea, but even that doesn’t work…Social media.
[…] On Bob Costas’ sudden, 30-year-late pronouncement that “redskin” is a “slur” | protein wis… […]
The untidy yards are all in Interior Alaska, where everybody — Native and Multi-Generation Euro-Trash Invader alike — tends to hang onto anything and everything, in case it might prove useful someday.
Replacement parts, even in the 21st century, are expensive and take too long to ship up from The States, as some up there still call ’em.
yes I have been on many a reservation I have smelled the hopelessness and witnessed the despair of these people – the insidious despair what nurtures a slow degradation of the soul
if you ever need to get a check cashed I suppose you might avail yourself of one of these reservations as it’s their second-largest industry after the casino
perhaps you might, as I have, enjoy some tasty fast food products and sit amongst our native american friends
there you will see a varietal of childhood obesity of extravagance and profundity unmatched in your experience theretofore
you will feel angry at what has been done unto these people
but you will cast about in vain for any hope of their deliverance
for what you see all about you is intractable as midnight and suppurating as rot
if they are to have hope they must be their own deliverance i fear, for to the malevolent bureaucrats of our suffocatingly fascist country they are as herd animals Mr. Blitz
to think that hundreds of years have passed and even yet the savvy traveler gives wide berth to these lands when he can
it’s a sadness and a shame
what remedy for these ills you ask?
I can but say the answer lies not in a refined and delicate sensitivity to the names of professional sports franchises, my Indian friends, but in yourselves
I pray someday you find your way and claim your destiny your dignity your dreams and flee these purgatorial wastes to which you’ve been consigned.
Feets? I feel your faux pain. There IS an answer griefer… Get them OFF the dole and let them sink or swim comes to mind. Nobody on the feds teat that didn’t pay in belongs there, with the exception of the truly destitute whom YOU like to call losers, amongst other things.
Those that can’t swim? REAL charity, like Sally and Red Cross…Those that can however? will make their communities better than ever.
cankle news
Hillary who? Bloody-minded London traffic warden defies five furious secret service agents to give Hillary Clinton a ticket
Hey Scribe…My place in Maine? ancient pumps and generators just in case, but we keep them in this huge barn. We even have a coal/wood one from the 30s!!
Just stop calling people you have no clue about things that you’re not in any place to even understand, Ok Happy?
Utah families on food stamps could be cut off soon
i’m hungry Mr. Blitz there’s a chopped salad around here somewhere for me I just have to find it
you sure do give me a hard time but i’ve walked among the navajo and walked amongst their squalor and I’ve walked among the hopi and the cherokee ones too and the oneida I’ve also visited and let’s not forget the sioux or about the day I chanced upon the surly ojibway yes Mr. Blitz I’ve seen things – dreadful things – and god bless america
How about the Washington Foreskins? The new mascot can be called Smeggy.
Yuck. But, hilarious.
Good show, paleo.
Maybe the Washington Swords of the Prophet PBUH brought to you by the Muslim Brotherhood Interfaith Outreach Project?
In a flash it came to me: The Washington Engines
Clearly, the state, county, and city of Oklahoma will have to change their common name, derived from the Choctaw words “okla” and “humma”, meaning , uh…
“Red people”.