I'm sure some of you have seen the following article:
http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post/_/id/48606/goodell-should-care-more-about-redskins
In which Graziano tells us his feelings how how people should be called, and how mean it is to refer to anybody of a Native persuasion such a diabolical thing as Redskin. He outlines his thoughts quite clearly on how wrong he thinks it is, even going so far as to call it an "epithet with a history of deployment as a tool for derision and prejudice."
However, not once does he actually state how this was ever used as an epithet, or in what context it is. I found an article showing a rather different side of the story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/02/AR2005100201139.html
Personally, I am a half-blood Lakota from the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe in South Dakota. My reservation is comprised of the 4th and 11th poorest counties in the entire United States. The tribal government is rife with corruption, and living conditions are notorious for being poor. Most people born there do not leave, and many families are started while in High School, with a great many of them dropping out and failing to graduate.
There are many problems facing the Native population in this country. While my reservation may be on the lower end, it is not alone in it's plight. All these statistics are pointing out ways people could actually help their fellow man, and a destroyed minority. Instead, however, we get the tripe about how racist a football team is for using a term thought to be coined by the natives themselves.
I have grown up with racism. My family left the reservation when I was 2; I never went to a school with other Native children. Oft times, my elder sister and I, with are reddish-brown skin and black hair, stood out quite blatantly from the rest of the students. She was often called a "fat sasquatch"; I was referred to as a "prairie nigger", among other things. Not once, in my entire time of having epithets hurled upon me, was I called a redskin.
It drives me insane to see these idiotic articles where people try to make themselves feel as if they are doing something worthwhile for a minority by striking down something because of their guilt. To me, the Washington Redskins are one of the few things left in this Nation that actually respectfully brings awareness about my ethnicity. Even in the census now, the only ethnicity you can choose is Latino; it isn't politically worthwhile to acknowledge us. When it comes to striking down a rare positive though, it seems as if any depiction of the original inhabitants of this country must be removed and forgotten.
I just hope that these while guiltists are struck down instead. I am so sick of hearing about how wronged Natives are for something like having a football team named after them, with a noble looking mascot, yet all the problems that said population actually has to deal with are completely ignored. If all these guilty people want to do something for the Natives, maybe they should worry about doing something about the reservations they tried to sequester us off to in the first place.
http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post/_/id/48606/goodell-should-care-more-about-redskins
In which Graziano tells us his feelings how how people should be called, and how mean it is to refer to anybody of a Native persuasion such a diabolical thing as Redskin. He outlines his thoughts quite clearly on how wrong he thinks it is, even going so far as to call it an "epithet with a history of deployment as a tool for derision and prejudice."
However, not once does he actually state how this was ever used as an epithet, or in what context it is. I found an article showing a rather different side of the story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/02/AR2005100201139.html
Personally, I am a half-blood Lakota from the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe in South Dakota. My reservation is comprised of the 4th and 11th poorest counties in the entire United States. The tribal government is rife with corruption, and living conditions are notorious for being poor. Most people born there do not leave, and many families are started while in High School, with a great many of them dropping out and failing to graduate.
There are many problems facing the Native population in this country. While my reservation may be on the lower end, it is not alone in it's plight. All these statistics are pointing out ways people could actually help their fellow man, and a destroyed minority. Instead, however, we get the tripe about how racist a football team is for using a term thought to be coined by the natives themselves.
I have grown up with racism. My family left the reservation when I was 2; I never went to a school with other Native children. Oft times, my elder sister and I, with are reddish-brown skin and black hair, stood out quite blatantly from the rest of the students. She was often called a "fat sasquatch"; I was referred to as a "prairie nigger", among other things. Not once, in my entire time of having epithets hurled upon me, was I called a redskin.
It drives me insane to see these idiotic articles where people try to make themselves feel as if they are doing something worthwhile for a minority by striking down something because of their guilt. To me, the Washington Redskins are one of the few things left in this Nation that actually respectfully brings awareness about my ethnicity. Even in the census now, the only ethnicity you can choose is Latino; it isn't politically worthwhile to acknowledge us. When it comes to striking down a rare positive though, it seems as if any depiction of the original inhabitants of this country must be removed and forgotten.
I just hope that these while guiltists are struck down instead. I am so sick of hearing about how wronged Natives are for something like having a football team named after them, with a noble looking mascot, yet all the problems that said population actually has to deal with are completely ignored. If all these guilty people want to do something for the Natives, maybe they should worry about doing something about the reservations they tried to sequester us off to in the first place.