Pressure Builds Again For Redhides To Change Team Name! Something About "Enlightenment"
Lord'sCock
By Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
In response to widespread disagreement over the meaning of the name
Redskins, I have crafted this interpretive totem pole of words, in
lieu of a peace pipe, to help guide at least some Washington football
team fans along the path to enlightenment.
"What [Redskins] means is tradition, what it means is competitiveness,
what it means is honor," team owner Daniel Snyder has said. "It is not
meant to be derogatory."
Let us meditate on this. Is our home team really competitive? Is there
honor in being the highest grossing (some would also say gouging)
franchise in the NFL and not winning so much as an NFC East
championship since 1999?
Snyder's claim that the name is honorific might soon be tested before
the U.S. Supreme Court, which was asked last week to rule on whether
Redskins is too offensive a nickname to merit trademark protection.
The suit was filed by Native Americans angry over a name they say is
offensive and injurious.
It would be fitting if the highest court in the land would take on a
legal issue that is sweeping the land.
In North Dakota, for instance, the state's Standing Rock and Spirit
Lake Sioux tribes ended a decades-long struggle in May when the
University of North Dakota agreed to drop the use of the "Fighting
Sioux" nickname.
Opponents of banning disparaging names and mascots have argued, as
California Assemblyman Richard Dickerson (R-Redding) put it, "If we
begin to write pieces of legislation to try to make sure no group of
people is offended by the actions of another group, my question is,
where would it stop?"
What Dickerson and others critics of so-called "political correctness"
appear not to understand is that the movement toward enlightenment has
already begun.
During the past 30 years, more than two-thirds of the nation's
estimated 3,000 schools with Indian mascots or nicknames have changed
them.
Everybody is starting to see the light. Even here.
Both the D.C. Council and the Washington Metropolitan Council of
Governments have voted for resolutions saying that the Washington
football team name is disparaging and should be changed. Many
newspapers have taken courageous stands on the subject, too, such as
the editorial that appeared in a 2003 edition of Lincoln (Neb.)
Journal Star:
"Readers of the sports pages may notice a change in the newspaper's
style beginning today: We have stopped using the nickname 'Redskins'
to refer to the professional football team of the nation's capital.
When we're reporting on that team, we call it Washington."
The Portland Press Herald in Maine banned the use of "Redskins" in
2000, explaining to readers that the word derived from a genocidal
practice of scalping indigenous peoples and collecting a bounty for
their bloody "redskins."
These kinds of changes don't require legislation, just a conscience.
Shame if our home team goes down in history as the last of the 19th
century-minded holdouts.
Journey back to 1933, when the showman and pandering marketer George
Preston Marshall renamed his Boston Braves football team "Redskins"
and, four years later, relocated them to Washington. The name had
nothing to do with "honoring Indian heritage," as Marshall would
claim. It was just an entertainers' gimmick from a man who'd just as
soon field a blackface basketball team if he could make a buck off it.
Asked if he was anti-Semitic, Marshall reportedly said, "Oh, no, I
love Jews, especially when they're customers."
Still, we need not forget that our home team -- three-time Super Bowl
champs -- has been one of most beloved in the NFL. (Not Sunday, of
course, when they were loudly booed at FedEx Field for the pathetic
way they eked out a 9-7 win over the hapless St. Louis Rams.)
It does appear at times that this team has really bad karma. So inhale
deeply now and hold this thought:
"For 17 seasons since we filed our lawsuit in 1992, the team has
changed owners, coaches, players, uniforms, logos and even stadiums
and still never made it back to the Super Bowl," said Suzan Harjo, a
D.C. resident who is Cheyenne and Muscogee and the lead plaintiff in
the lawsuit against the team. "You have to think that there's nothing
left to try except changing the name and joining the rest of us in the
21st century."
Now exhale. Release that toxin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/22/AR2009092203984.html
Dimitrios Paskoudniakis
"Lord'sCock" <jism...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:abe6e8c1-aed6-4999...@d23g2000vbm.googlegroups.com...
> "If the Redskins Care About Honor . . . "
>
> By Courtland Milloy
> Wednesday, September 23, 2009
>
I've said it before, and I'll say it again...
The best "win-win" solution is to keep the name and change the meaning to
potatoes. They can put a potato garden behind the sunny end zone, call the
stadium the "Bowl of Potatoes", and change the helmet logo to a bowl of
redskin potatoes. Monday headlines can say, "Redskins Mashed by Giants,
23-17".
Of course the lyrics to "Hail To The Redskins" would have to change...
Jim Carr
I can live with that.
Hail to the Redskins
Hail victory
Spuds on the hot stove
Cook for old DC
Run or pass and score -- we want a lot more!
Mash 'em! Smash 'em!
Touchdown! -- Let the points soar!
Cook on, cook on 'Til you have won
Spuds of Wash-ing-ton. Rah!, Rah!, Rah!
--
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
- Anonymous
David Lesher
>The best "win-win" solution is to keep the name and change the meaning to
>potatoes. They can put a potato garden behind the sunny end zone, call the
>stadium the "Bowl of Potatoes", and change the helmet logo to a bowl of
>redskin potatoes. Monday headlines can say, "Redskins Mashed by Giants,
>23-17".
>Of course the lyrics to "Hail To The Redskins" would have to change...
Kale with the redskins; a healthy new treat for the family.
--
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Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
Dimitrios Paskoudniakis
"Jim Carr" <newsg...@azwebpages.com> wrote in message
news:f7xum.18789$6f4....@newsfe08.iad...
How about "Fry for old DC" and "Fry on, fry on"
Jim Carr
That sounds better than cook, but do you normally fry redskin taters? I
want to be authentic and not offend any Native Chefs.