Forget that the name “red skins” had as its actual, historical referent the translation of what Native Americans called themselves; forget, too, that the Washington football team was given the name in honor of a Native American. Instead, just note that somewhere, some poor, dumb, thin-skinned soul may affect an outrage totally outsized with respect to a name that has been around for multiple decades — and then conveniently come, suddenly and with a mob wave of constructed outrage, to the realization that those poor hypothetical souls must be protected, and that your campaign of liberal, political correct benevolence is the only way these noble savages can be saved from the “slurs” and “racism” that every Sunday, and occasional on Thursday or Monday (except on bye-weeks), psychically attack them.
Thank goodness for the White Man, riding to the rescue once again, eh? This is what our popular culture teaches, and it therefore no surprise when college papers take up these phony causes in a display of shimmering ignorance and false nobility.
Because in this case, there’s a problem, as James Taranto points out. And that is this: Oklahoma is based on Choctaw Indian words which translate as “red people”.
— Leading me to conclude that people in rhetorical wigwams shouldn’t throw the buffalo scat.
Oops!
As I’ve been preaching for years, intentionalism — or rather the attack on it as the default state of communication — is what allows sanctimonious scolds to control our speech, whether it’s trying to force the Redskins to retract the honorary nature of their founding in the name of a tolerance already demonstrated, well in advance of the PC crusade; or by convincing us it’s not only somehow reasonable for an elderly black gentlemen hearing someone summon their dog by calling “here, boy” to grow angry at what he’s determined to hear as as racist taunt, but that because it’s reasonable, we must be hyperaware of how our utterances could be taken by every last particular audience with a gripe and a means of politicizing their outrage, real or imagined, regardless of what the original utterance actually meant.
That why lies madness. Or, in most cases, a theater of the rhetorical and linguistic absurd that very few people are willing to point and laugh at, for fear of being shunned.
Me, I don’t much care about shunning any longer. So: congrats, Oklahoma Daily editorial writers: you have not only managed to sound preachy and ignorant, but you have become the very kind of douches who will likely one day run the world that increasingly has surrendered reality to the fevered constructs of motivated malcontents and sanctimonious control freaks out for any form of cheap grace.
I will hereafter call that publication, “The State Between Texas and Kansas Daily.”
It’s the University of Oklahoma’s school newspaper, not the Daily Oklahoman in OKC, McGehee.
My son was part of the support staff of the school paper, not a “journalist” and has confirmed that everything we have said about J School is correct. Smug, insular, the Borg: it is J-School.
For years, I’ve desperately searched for some way to partake of the “victim buffet” to no avail. Do you think I can make any hay with a “discrimination against Americans of Alsatian descent” platform? I mean, nobody spells it Straßburg over here. All you get is that French crap with the superfluous “o” and only one “s.” It really pisses me off.
Greetings:
I was never much of a “literature” fan during my academic years and even less so for “poetry”, but there is a concept from the latter that I have managed to retain and that I think is applicable to this teapot of tempest but seems to have escaped the many wordsmiths eager to share their wit and wisdom or things somewhat similar.
Teachers of poetry, or at least the few under whose purview I fell, discriminate between “denotation” and “connotation”. Simply put the “denotation” is the dictionary definition of the word, what it is commonly accepted to mean. “Connotation”, on the other hand, is the meaning that is inferred by the where, when, and how the word is actually used to convey meaning. It can be the same as the “denotation” or it can be somewhat or even largely different.
Thus, “denotationally”, “Redskins” is probably not a nice word to use and this would appear to be supported by its very random use. “Connotationally”, though, there is no logic to naming a sports team with a derogatory term. This is what I see somewhat poetically as two team names passing in the night.
Who has determined that the self-referential term (that is to say, the so-called “victim” class uses it to describe themselves, sans prompting, and solely as a means of discriminating between “us” and “them”) is “probably not a nice word to use”? Using what metric, and please include satisfactory reasons as to why that metric should supersede that used by the so-called “victim” class?
In short, your superciliousness is as meaningless as it is subjective, and we will continue to make fun of anyone who deems that their protection “is for the victim’s own good”, with the lesser included charges of “knowing better” and “the victim doesn’t know what is supposed to be offensive to the victim”.
It’s “very random use” also seems to be in a consistent manner that denotes the most admirable of traits and the hopes that the name will inspire the members to emulate those traits – such as sports teams, group mascots, youth scouting groups, etc., so I will also dismiss your claim as regards “random use = negative/insulting”. People don’t often use the word ‘sphygmomanometer”, but there is no negative denotation, except to those who hate to have their blood pressure taken.
To sum up, give up, you’re on the wrong side of everything but the Leftist Fad du moment, used solely as SQUIRREL!
FTFY, in the spirit of the University of The State Between Texas and Kansas Daily’s political correctness.
I’d say it’s clear you weren’t much of a literature fan, nor much of a literature student. Denotatively, Oklahoma translates as red people. Denotatively, red skin as used both by the founders of the Washington franchise and the Native American community itself, was not considered derogatory.
Connotatively, on the other hand, by a willful dismissal of both intent and its historic meaning, some opportunists have tried to turn the term into something negative — in my opinion, to see how much power they can supposedly wield through their phony victimhood.
If that weren’t bad enough, if they are successful they set a precedent for establishing that how someone feels when confronted with a term they don’t understand denotatively is then free to create and then push a connotative meaning that only exists because they determined to create it in the first place.
History of the team name shows that, pace your argument, Redskins was meant precisely as a tribute — a nice word honoring a long-time friend of the owner’s. Connotatively, there is no reason to believe an actual Native usage of Native terms is an affront to Native Americans, unless what you are arguing is that you know better than they what their language must necessarily mean in new social contexts.
I pray when you garden — or play bridge — you stay away from spades.
Native Americans also call themselves Indians or colloquially, “Injuns”.
Which is why I still think the politically correct repair to the Redskins problem is to name them The Engines. Everybody wins.
I am inspired by the other post of the teacher calling the parent a “Neo-Nazi” and want to change the teams name to “Skin Heads”.
Greetings, Jeff G.: ( @ November 7, 2013 at 10:29 am)
I find you initial paragraph too esoteric for a general audience. I don’t doubt the accuracy of the information you provide, I just don’t think I it would resonate with many Americans at this point in time. I think that your argument swims against too much of a low-information tide.
What I find useful in the denotation-connotation approach is that it moves past the current negative “felt” knowledge of the denoted word to a contextual evaluation of the purpose of naming a sports team to disparage a group of people’s nonsensicality.
of the purpose of naming a sports team to disparage a group of people’s nonsensicality.
Since that was most emphatically NOT the actual purpose of using the name, your whole argument falls apart. Unless, of course, you are saying that how you feel about the name now somehow overrides the historical facts behind the usage? In other words, are you advocating your “feeling” attempting to override reality?
Kansas City Chiefs and children affected most by this.
Green Bay Packers name decried as being homophobic.
New Zealand has a Rugby team called the All Blacks. I think an international campaign should be started to have them change their name.
Would it be acceptable to use the term Redskins in any other context? No. Hmmm. Maybe that’s why it’s not such a great team name.
It hasn’t been a great team for quite some time, though the name has little to do with it.
I think the association with Washington is more offensive.
redskin potatoes
How about the produce aisle?
Beaten by mere seconds…
Good point. They just need to change their logo and mascot to a potato.
Would it be acceptable to use the term Redskins in any other context? No. Hmmm. Maybe that’s why it’s not such a great team name.
Used by who? The so-called victim you claim to suddenly represent?
What gives you the right to speak for a people you clearly do not belong to, paleface?
Greetings, Drumwater: (@ November 7, 2013 at 11:26 am)
Besides not being a “literature” fan, I guess I’m not all that great a writer either. What I was trying to convey was that it would be nonsensical to name a sports team in order to disparage a group of people. Most people seem to laud their sports teams. Thus, no matter how much some people find the word “Redskins” demeaning the fact that it is used as a team name overrides that interpretation.
The historical facts are well beyond the point as most people are and will be unaware of them. Argument-wise, it’s kind of like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. If I remember my high school Latin, our word “education” comes from “educo”, to lead out of. Sometimes, debate can be a good educational tool but it is also somewhat confrontational. If the experience becomes “See, I’m right.” or “Gotcha” the confrontational aspect can preclude the educative one.
11B40, how will you make “the historical facts are well beyond the point” fit any universal account of the true? Or to put that another way, what means will you use to draw the line at which “historical fact” leaves the scene as a meaningful contributor to our understanding of anything, or merely anything, at all? And will the means you choose to justify your line drawing in turn lean in any way on some measure of history (broadly taken)? It’s a tricky bit of business, at least.
Has anybody checked in with the Fightin’ Irish leprechaun to see how he fits into the scheme of things?
I thought the whole point of naming football franchises was to make them sound like fearsome contenders? Being part pioneer and part blood-thirsty Injun myself, I say the description is apt.
I need to remember that the next time someone complains to me…
“You just ran into the back of my car!”
“The historical facts are well beyond the point, it’s how I feel about it NOW that matters, so let’s just say no more about it!”
Yeah, that works…
it’s much more problematic that the NFL is a redoubt of illiterate trashy thugs I think than anything to do with mascots and stuff
I thought the whole point of naming football franchises was to make them sound like fearsome contenders?
Tennessee Oilers on Line 2…
(yes, I know they are called the Titans now, which is kind of the point.)
I have no Injun blood myself, that I know of — but there are non-professional sports teams around called “Highlanders” that depict my ancestors as mindless brutes always just spoiling for a fight.
To which we descendants of actual mindless brutes who were always just spoiling for a fight say, “Yeah? So? You lookin’ for trouble or what?”
Greetings, sdferr: (@ November 7, 2013 at 12:28 pm)
Unfortunately, in a “low-information” age, any universal account of the true will not govern. The task to be accomplished is suasion, and a rational but off-putting approach is unlikely to overcome felt “knowledge”.
When I was in grammar school, one of the guys caught ringworm over the summer vacation and lost all his hair. The word I got was that it was the result of wearing one of the Negro guys hat. That bit of info governed my approach to hat-wearing for a handful or so of years. There’s was no way I would wear any Negro’s hat, period. Finally, someone who had some influence with me showed me different. I still didn’t wear any Negro’s hat, but I was able to conclude that there was no danger of ringworm in so doing.
Similarly, I would offer the recent re-election of President Obama in spite of his less than spotty performance. This is not the age of the rational or true which you seek.
The approach I would offer includes a modicum, perhaps more, of emotional support by revealing an easily understood tool with which to analyze the problem, something that can be both introduced and understood almost simultaneously.
In this day and age, I think that that’s the best we can hope for.
That seems a nasty nihilism for humans to have to live with, and really, as such, can’t be effectively persuasive to any but the most complicit worm. No wonder it’s rejected just as soon as it shows its face.
I am a liitle less offended because “da Bears” have a winning record. However the Cal Bears are 1 and 8 and I am deeply offended.
To which we descendants of actual mindless brutes who were always just spoiling for a fight say, “Yeah? So? You lookin’ for trouble or what?”
Damn straight.
” Has anybody checked in with the Fightin’ Irish leprechaun to see how he fits into the scheme of things?”
Was he always a Leprechaun or has he slowly been reconstructed as one as the idea of a loud, bald, bearded, drunken stereotypically dressed St. Patty’s day brawler became less and less acceptable? I have no idea since most of the Irish people I’ve met have been overweight, pleasant, gregarious, and middle aged. And it’s not symbol I’d associate with the usual stereotypical portrayals of the “Scotch-Irish farmer trash” on my Dad’s side of the family Hardins and Hills mostly.
To me the fighting Irish mascot looks like something Chuck Jones might have come up with where it is turned up to 11 that it’s hard to take it as a serious insult and so it can be laughed off easily as intentionally ridiculously over the top purely for the sake of being over the top.
Worrying about what the fucking low information voters are going to think is why we find ourselves in the ass end of Wonderland, where Chris Christie is a mainstream conservative and mainstream conservatives like Cuccinelli are extremists to the right of Attila the Hun.
Stop worryng about low information voters and winning elections for the sake of winning elections.