So Corso's an annoying idiot. What else is new?

The issue is historic. It's true natives are fine with it but redskins is a racist term. Those that aren't ok with it have a legitimate gripe when they say they would rather not see such a team name in a league that depends on the federal government for its existence in the first place.

It's not so clear "redskins" is an unambiguously racist word. The fact that 90% of Indians are fine with it is pretty good evidence to back that up. We ought not change things around because of a very small minority of a certain group's opinion.

Not saying I doubt your number, but where'd 90% come from? I would believe it if you said 90% thought there were bigger issues - they are right, there are much, much bigger issues. I highly doubt a credible poll of actual Indians found 90% thought it was appropriate though.

"As for Redskins being offensive, 90% of American Indians seem to be fine with it, so the issue ought to be over right then and there."

I know Snyder cites that stat, but I still find that rather hard to believe...

It's not as if the controversy around the name is new, and it's only gotten louder over time, so while 90% may be "OK" with it in the sense that, hey, you've been fighting battles for hundreds of years and you REALLY probably have more pressing concerns than what a team thousands of miles away calls itself, especially when it's backed by a white billionaire owner and White vs. Any tribe historically has traditionally gone the White's way...

You kind of are "OK" with it in the sense you don't have the time or energy to fight about it...but that's a whole lot different from actually being "OK" with it.

If you beat down a population for hundreds of years and then ask "Hey, are you offended by a team name that's a racial slur towards you? You can say yes or no, just keep in mind that if you say no...probably nothing will happen because the owner's a white billionaire who refuses to change the name"...

Guess how many people are going to leap up and swing into action in THAT scenario?

"Not saying I doubt your number, but where'd 90% come from? I would believe it if you said 90% thought there were bigger issues - they are right, there are much, much bigger issues. I highly doubt a credible poll of actual Indians found 90% thought it was appropriate though."

www.google.com
I don't remember where I heard it first, but I've heard it a lot all over, in articles and on ESPN.


So obiwanobiwan knows better than 90% of American Indians. Jeez, I guess the white man's burden doesn't count if the cause is a fuzzy liberal one.

Invictus, the term "redskin" is defined as offensive and "taboo" by American dictionaries. Even if 90% of whoever they polled approved, a number which I call bullshit, it's an offensive term.

Did you Google it? It may be bullshit, but I didn't make it up.

I never said people didn't find it offensive, just that it's not unambiguously racist.

I see a lot of people reporting the number but I don't see an original source in any of the articles. Do you know of one?

Would be good to know who they polled and, more specifically, where they polled them. I imagine that Navajo in the southwest have a different view than Shawnee in Ohio, for example. And, of course, I imagine Powhatan have a different view than Chinook. Might be good to know if they polled on a reservation versus in a city. Only 20-ish percent of Indians live on reservations and I imagine one's viewpoint when assimilated with a much higher number of culturally identical people would be different than one's when living in a diverse neighborhood in Phoenix, for example.

Another hunch, which makes a little bit of sense - since the term "redskin" originates, at least in its current form, from the body paint used by the Delaware (literally red skin), and Delaware today only constitute 16,000 of the population according to Wikipedia (75% living in Oklahoma; don't know the reservation), the idea that only 10% are offended is probably because most aren't familiar with the term in that sense. I imagine that number will change once the concept becomes more widely known. A poll in five years, for example, may turn up a much different number.

How would finding out that the term refers to paint rather than literal skin color make people more offended? That makes no sense.

If the issue is if it offends American Indians then it's totally irrelevant whether they live on a reservation or not. Do they lose the right to have their opinion count if they, horror or horrors, live in a place with more economic prospects than a typical reservation?

No, no link to the original. This might have it.
www.google.com

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/redskins/2004-09-24-redskins-indians-poll_x.htm

Annenberg Survey

I used Google to find what I posted, Invictus. There's nothing useful other than various fringe media sites reporting the same story. By the way, according to CBS, the actual number Snyder referenced in his conversations with the NFL is 79%.

The origins of the word redskin are literally the split of the compound word. The offensive part came from the British mandate against the Penobscot tribes during the 1700s - I'm sure you've heard of it before. Some say that that's bullshit because the actual term "redskin" was never used in the mandate, and it may very well be bullshit, but the fact of the matter is that the stigma is there.

They do not lose their right to an opinion, Invictus, but there is no way to deny that they lose parts of their culture. That's why my skin is a pasty white, not a darker hue. Cultures get intertwined, opinions get mixed, views get changed - it's a fact of a diversified lifestyle. Diffusion as a concept isn't bad, but when it comes to polling regarding issues like this one, it can bias the results. It's just a question I raise regarding the poll.

The Oneida, by the way, suggest that 59% of Washington-area residents polled in their own study understand why the name is deemed offensive. That is probably biased in the opposite direction.

I'm a bit tired to debate this (if you can't tell - I imagine I don't make any sense at this point). I'll leave it alone for now.

Good link, Putin. Still there's plenty of potential bias left to uncover here but it's a good start.

Didn't realize it was ten years old. I'll bet there's one being conducted right now to see if the figure is still so lopsided. Dan Snyder's probably paying for it.

2003-2004 is a long time ago indeed. Even if the numbers were the same, say, last year, they've probably been skewed further as this argument furthers and more people hear about it.

I very much doubt many people are just finding out now that he Redskins exist.

"Even if the numbers were the same, say, last year, they've probably been skewed further as this argument furthers and more people hear about it."

just because the white guilt brigade only just learned what "football" and "Washington Redskins" are within the past year doesn't mean the rest of the country did too

Obi, this problem will be a moot point when the whole sport of football goes the way of the fox hunt in a decade or two.

but what does the fox hunt say?

LOL

"Obi, this problem will be a moot point when the whole sport of football goes the way of the fox hunt in a decade or two."

Did you ever answer my "it's their choice" point after our back-and-forth and I cited those other sports?

Again, as MLB and NBA contracts are guaranteed money, and their players have longer careers, could you please explain again how choosing the NFL is the best business move possible when I've given you two prominent cases--Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays--of players saying that's not so, hence their baseball careers?

And if the fox hunt paid like athletics does and had as huge a TV audience as the NFL does, it'd not only still be around, but it'd have it's own 32-team American league, a network, and we'd be sitting here discussing the inappropriate-yet-hilarious news that a team had changed its name to the Pittsburgh PETA-Bashers.

*Cue Putin's rage over how great that all-for-show, so-absurd-even-actual-animal-rights-activists-turn-away-in-shame is*

Hey, Putin--your beloved namesake is the one that allowed for a Greenpeace boat to be seized...

My namesake is simply here to remind you that "The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded," which explains how Darth Krellin was seduced by the Dark Side of the FOX, er, Force.

"Did you ever answer my "it's their choice" point after our back-and-forth and I cited those other sports?"

Yes, actually I did. Do you ever read responses or just enjoy bringing up every single irrelevancy that you can think of in order to distract people's attention?

" could you please explain again how choosing the NFL is the best business move possible when I've given you two prominent cases--Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays--of players saying that's not so, hence their baseball careers?"
''
They played in a different time period. Try reading before spouting off, for once. The MLB, for one reason or another, burnt its bridges with the urban youth in the United States. Your archnemesis Gary Sheffield made this point when he said that Latino players can be paid less than black American players, so the MLB wants them instead.

"Hey, Putin--your beloved namesake is the one that allowed for a Greenpeace boat to be seized..."

Hey look, Obi is losing a debate so he has to bring up Putin or communism or something.

Hey Obi, what do you think of your hero Napoleon calling the Jews the "most despicable of mankind"? Or his reintroduction of slavery? Or his order to shoot all black Haitians over the age of 12?

Nevermind. OMG PUTIN.

Unfortunately, you're too bullish on football's future, obiwanobiwan. All it would take to slowly kill off the sport is for a few successful, high profile lawsuits against high schools over concussions. If the risk of liability becomes too great, schools will drop the programs, and we won't be producing quality players, and professional football as we know it will die out.

I hope that doesn't happen, obviously. I only really get into baseball, but I like a good football game the way any decent American does. It's hard to imagine how we could get along without it. However, considering the brewing storm over concussions I really see this as a possibility. If it becomes too risky for high schools to have football programs thanks to future rulings about there being too much risk of serious injury and millions of dollars in punitive damages awarded, then the supply chain of college and professional players breaks down. All it'll take are some really hurt kids, really ambitious trial lawyers, and really dumb jurors.

"Unfortunately, you're too bullish on football's future, obiwanobiwan. All it would take to slowly kill off the sport is for a few successful, high profile lawsuits against high schools over concussions. If the risk of liability becomes too great, schools will drop the programs, and we won't be producing quality players, and professional football as we know it will die out."

I don't know. I'm pretty sure Texas would amend its constitution at record speed. Turnout would be higher than for any Presidential election in the last half century.

Football dying by lawsuit is such a classic American end to a classic American sport.

Our college mascot was the Apaches, and way back when people first started getting sensitive, an administrator contacted the Apache Tribe, and they said they were not only fine with it, but proud of it. Nevertheless, political correctness eventually had its way, and we now have an animal mascot--at least until somebody protests.

For the most part, portrayal through a mascot isn't a big deal, so long as that mascot isn't doing anything offensive to the tribe. That's a misconception that people seem to have about this whole debate. As long as the portrayal is accurate, it's really not a big deal. Redskin, on the other hand, has a connotation, and it's not an accurate portrayal of any tribe other than the Lenape in a very small time in their history.

Christians hate political correctness unless it benefits them.