October 15th, 2013
Allahpundit has a very nice riff on what’s so disturbing about the new rush on the left to change the name of the Washington Redskins: “[I]t’s a lesson in how quickly leftist opinion can transform an esoteric issue that they’ve ignored for decades into bien-pensant conventional wisdom that demands hysterical demonization of its opponents. Bob Costas is another perfect example.”
Here’s more:
I checked our archives to see when our own blogging about the anti-”Redskins” movement began. Could be that this subject, which has been percolating for ages, reached full boil on the left a long time ago, but if it did, we missed it. The first notice we took of it was Erika’s post in March about a small group of congressional Democrats trying to do something legislatively about it. (They’re still trying, by the way.) A few weeks later there was something about the D.C. City Council wanting to do something about it. Then Redskins owner Dan Snyder made his big blunder: He told USA Today, “We’ll never change the name. It’s that simple. NEVER — you can use caps.” That was him essentially daring the left to try to force him by engineering new “enlightened” ground rules on “Redskins” usage for the media and political class. A few months later, “Slate” dropped the word; Rachel Maddow followed suit and then, inevitably, Obama was asked about it and tepidly endorsed changing the name. And so now, with record speed, here’s O’D in the highest self-righteous dudgeon towards people who hold a position that virtually no one gave a wet fart about six months ago. To me, that’s the worst part of the whole anti-Redskins phenomenon. It’s not opposing the term itself that’s annoying; that’s defensible. It’s not even getting indignant with people who don’t see a problem with using it. It’s the sanctimony coupled with the faddishness of the whole thing. How dare Dan Snyder disagree with something that the left didn’t care about five minutes ago? How dare he?
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Allahpundit is right: Dan Snyder effectively invited the deluge when he drew a line in the sand, and dared the organized Left to cross it. The closest analogy has to be Gary Hart’s 1987 response to the Miami Herald’s questions about his alleged infidelity: “put a tail on me…you’ll be very bored.” Talk about poking the bear with a pointed stick.
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Instead of changing their name, why not just use a potato as their mascot??
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Umm, I’m an Indian, I’m on the right, and I have cared about this issue for some years now. It’s not just people on the left that want the name changed, and for some of us, hating the “Redskins” nickname is not a fad either. Not that I’ve been out protesting in the streets, but that’s because I don’t like to waste my time. Neither the previous nor the current ownership would budge on this, and there are other things I can actually affect.
Still and all, it disturbs me to see so many people on my side blithely dismissing hate directed toward an enshrined racial slur as just more PC garbage. I continue to wonder, if leftists were pushing to change the name of a sports franchise called the Nashville Niggers, how many more people they’d have on their side.
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And I’m not clear, BTW, what about the Redskins’ nickname Ellie believes is directed particularly at the “indigenous Americans of the Pacific Northwest.” Perhaps she is unaware that the Washington in question is D.C.?
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If you’re crying about the Redskins team name, you are not even the slightest bit conservative. Sorry.
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Dan Snyder is a genius.
By inciting the leftards with his vocal refusal to kowtow to their inanity, he has caused them to respond in typical form: waxing psychotic.
Now all he has to do is sit back and ignore them, be the rock upon which they break themselves. It takes EFFORT to maintain feelings of outrage. It takes WORK to continually reiterate to oneself, and anyone else who will listen, just how horrible and (of course) racist the Redskins are for refusing to change their horrible and racist name to something else.
How long can the professional left keep this up? How long will they keep themselves tied up whining about this manufactured issue when there are other things they’d rather be ranting about?
Welcome to the Rope-a-Dope tactic. This is not a new idea. The Romans used it defeat the Britons by inciting Boudicca’s numerically superior forces to attack them at a time and place of their choosing. The left won’t be destroyed by this (sadly), but their failure to get their way by whining will hurt them psychologically.
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@Demosthenes
I’m Blackfoot. And I live in the PNW.
And Scottish, too.Oh, and conservative.
Which really means no more than your claim. Or will you blithely dismiss that?
Care to tell me, Mr. Conservative, what I should be outraged about next?
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I don’t believe Redskins was ever meant to offend or insult, and in fact, Redskins was originally a term that Indians used themselves. However, the meanings of words change over time. If a majority, or even a significant minority of Indians find the term offensive, then the team name should be changed. I am not convinced that is the case, and I am bothered by a small vocal group presuming to speak for all Indians and determining what is and is not acceptable.
As for comparisons to “Nashville Ni**ers” – not the same thing at all. We all know that ni**ers is an offensive word. The debate is whether Redskins is offensive or not. Some Indians say it is; many more say it is not.
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“If a majority, or even a significant minority of Indians find the term offensive, then the team name should be changed. I am not convinced that is the case”
This. All-in-all, it’s pretty damn condescending for a bunch of white leftists to be telling American Indians what they should find offensive. If a large number of them find it offensive, they should change it. But they shouldn’t change it because a bunch of whiny, race agitating lefties find it offensive.
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[…] a quick review of the bizarre […]
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Yeah, I’m used to fact-free, argument-free rebuttals like that. I usually get them from “progressives” who tell me that not supporting whatever the leftist shibboleth of the week is means that I don’t care about people. You might stop to think about what it says that you’re using their tactic to defend the use of a racial slur.
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Hang in there, Demosthenes – there are insensitive morons on both sides of the aisle.
I find your arguments compelling and your reasoning right on target.
The owner has the right to name the team whatever he wants and the rest of us have the right to stop going to games and to stop using their nickname. We can call them “Team Washington w/Idiot Titleholder ” – or the TWITs for short if we choose.
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Thank you, Dave. I should make it clear that my last comment was directed solely at Mike. I didn’t see any other comments before posting, so I thought I didn’t have to reference him. I forgot that some might have been in moderation.
Although I suppose it could just as well have been directed at Jimg, who mistakenly thinks I’m trying to tell people about what they should be outraged about. I’m not the arbiter of your feelings; feel however you like. But I do not like that this is the new battle line in the PC war, and I do not like being confronted with the silly line that being okay with the moniker “Redskins” is necessary for being a conservative.
biancaneve, you may wish to read the NCAI’s report on the matter, which is linked below. Whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, “redskin,” like “nigger,” is a racial slur.
http://www.ncai.org/resources/ncai-publications/Ending_the_Legacy_of_Racism.pdf
And — look, I don’t question your good will. I know that there are people who are not racist and who think I’m wrong, and until they start mocking me or my position, I have no quarrel with them. Still, I grow weary of reading things like “Well, who says ‘redskin’ anymore?” or “Well, most Indians don’t find it offensive,” as if those were the winning arguments. “Wop” is also not in common usage, and I doubt most people with Italian ancestry would be all that offended if you said that word in their presence. So is that word okay now? When do “kike” and “chink” become okay?
Racial slurs at least ought to all be treated by the same rules — either they’re all okay, or none of them is okay (my position), or there’s a standard to tell which is which. So what are the principles to which you appeal? What is the standard of discourse that makes one racial slur not such a big deal, and another so scary that you’ll asterisk out letters rather than spell the word?
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I give little credence to your linked NCAI “study,” Demosthenes. Regarding the Washington Redskins, they start out claiming an unsubstantiated “fact,” apparently arguing from authority because, hey, they’re the National Congress of American Indians, so they *must* be experts.
They appear to me to have an agenda, and I know of no reason to consider them to be an authority on the subject. So, I reject your characterization of the Redskins name as racist based on the rationale you provided. You haven’t proved your point.
And for the record, as a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, I’ve got no dog in the fight over the Redskins name.
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Here’s my counter rationale, Demosthenes:
In 2004, 90% of American Indians said that calling Washington’s professional football team the “Redskins” does not bother them, the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey shows.
By the way, I’m sorry that you find the use of the term offensive. I promise never to use it in your presence in the future, other than when discussing the term itself and whether or not we should consider it to be racist or offensive.
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Please sign our petition to keep the Redskins name. It will be sent to the NFL We have over 2000 signatures and counting. Please look past the hosting site as I don’t think the guy that started it realized their history. All you have to do is enter your name and zip code.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/keep-the-washington-redskins.fb40?source=s.fb&r_by=9269115
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[…] the population not demurred in their passions by the fact that the internet is forever. Tweets and columns critical of Costas’ rationale and decision to mention the issue at all poured out. The following […]
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Hey Boyd, that Annenberg study did not contact a single tribe or even use Bureau of Indian Affairs listed Indians. It cold called 15000 random people and asked if they had Indian blood, and then asked if the name “Redskin” offended them. it was a flawed method that had zero verification that they were talking to a person of native descent.
So, imagine a person who is white like Elizabeth Warren and having been told by Grand Mom that Great,Great Grand Dad was Cherokee. She gets the call, answering in the affirmative and saying no, because she has zero connection to native Americans based on an unverified blood claim.
It was a bullcrap study from the get go, and ingrate Washington fans cling to it like it is the book of John. Don’t cold call LA, Chicago and DC, cold call the areas around Reservations and ask if they are members of a tribe. That might provide a meaningful statistic but it wont be 90% I guarantee it.
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To the Author, this case has been ongoing since the 1990’s and has only popped up because Snyder lost in court and PTO rescinded his trademark per the Disparagement Clause. It’s genesis has nothing to do with Obama.
Ellie Kesselman October 21, 2013 at 10:21 pm
The timing is richly ironic. Progressive liberal Democrats* are SO concerned about this perceived racial insult to the indigenous Americans of the Pacific Northwest. Our ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stephens, was a registered (their term) Chinook Indian. All the liberal outrage over the Washington Redskins mascot should be focused on avenging, or at least bringing to justice, whomever was responsible for killing Ambassador Stephens and the three other U.S. citizens who died in Benghazi.
I realize that the rumor mill is cranking away, alleging that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi was a CIA gun-running operation or such. What difference does it make? None. Diplomatic missions have multiple purposes. Yet ambassadors should never be harmed. It is a tenet of civilization, modern and not-so-modern.
* FDR was a liberal progressive Democrat. He was a good leader, and a good person! Those in power now are very different than FDR.