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PFT: Momentum builds for a Redskins name change, and one man can make it happen

and this is what I sent to him:

I am a Native American, from the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe. I dealt with a long list of racist epithets in my youth, when I was one of two natives at the school I went to (the other being my sister). We had a variety of racial insults thrown at us during our time there, with her being called a "sasquatch" and myself being called a "prairie n*****".

Never once have I heard redskin used in a negative fashion. I have seen that others have stated they were called a "dirty redskin". I myself was called a "dirty indian". The intent of the message, paired with the use of "dirty" as derogatory, is the problem. The word redskin is not the insult in that phrase.

Through the links you had today, there was the article of when they spoke to a panel of Natives. The main theme I saw there was that the depiction of Natives was the issue. That there were different mascots that were horrible caricatures. I would agree that something like that is horrible and should be removed. That is not the problem I see with the Washington Redskins, however.

In our modern, overly PC society, you can find almost anybody who will be offended by any given label. That some person takes offense to something is not a surprise, it is almost expected now. At the same time, overreacting as a result, saying it's a matter of human decency to change a name, is silly.

There are many issues Natives face, with racism, and poverty forced on us by the reservation system. If the focus of this whole name change argument was instead ensuring a positive Native representation, I would be all for it. I hate things like the Cleveland Indians' mascot. Those sort of things are disgusting. However, the symbol/mascot for the Washington Redskins is actually decent and respectful.

I see all this need to remove Native names as so much whitewashing of the culture. It seems to me that people just want to erase us even more than they already have. There is no talk of trying to make the name/branding a respectful presence. There is only the talk of removal. Why can't people, if they are so stuck on that specific name, find a way to change it to another Native reference that isn't offensive to them? Can they even find one? Is it offensive to refer to ethnicity at all?

Finally, the whole George Preston Marshall thing. Yes, he was racist. It really doesn't matter. The team is his no longer, and can be crafted into whatever is chosen. Invoking a dead man just to serve an agenda is poor logic. People discount everything about it because of the culture at the time. There are much worse sins to worry about from then.

Point being: changing the name of the Washington Redskins will help nobody. It will make no-one feel better. If it happened to get changed today, it would be forgotten about in a few years, and the plight of the Native American would still be here. If people really cared at all about us, then they would be looking to actually do something that helps us, and improves our image, not taking something that actually proves we exist away to make some guilty white person feel better.
 
Okay, that is what I tried to send, but it doesn't submit. On Firefox, Chrome, or IE. What the hell.

I just sent in a link to the post, since it won't let me put all that in the comment box.
 
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Okay, I just asked him for his email address on Twitter, we'll see if he responds.
 
Shi No Tenshi...great write up!
 
Shi no Tenshi said:
If people really cared at all about us, then they would be looking to actually do something that helps us, and improves our image, not taking something that actually proves we exist away to make some guilty white person feel better.
Click to expand...

Wow, so very true.
PC people only care about "token movements" as a notch in their "medal belt", and not actual, real change.
 
Hey, all you can do is send it off to see what happens. If it gets ignored, you have proven who they are. If they listen, all the better.
 
I liked your letter ShinoTenshi, very well said. Doubt those ****bags won't acknowledge it tho, atleast publicly.

Edit: some stupid reason had "will" instead of won't.
 
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Tansei,

in case you didnt know, thats the Cree Indian greeting for Hello. The proper reply is Manadau, but you wouldnt know that, because in reality, you dont care about indians enough to learn that.

I am writing this to you in the hope that you will understand that not every Indian gets butthurt at seeing the redskins name and logo, in fact some of us are Redskins fans and very proud to see some sort of recognition for our people on Television. You might not know this but without Native americans , indians, first nations, whatever you name us, you would'nt have a country, moreover, if you went and asked most of us how we felt about classy respectful emblems and stuff like that (not chief wahoo who is patently offensive) you would hear that most of us either enjoy our teams or at worst don't really care. whatever the genesis of the name redskin, it has come to denote, respect, dignity and tradition. all things that we enjoy being affiliated with. the Redskins have never been disrespectful, our emblems have always been tasteful.

I guess I just dont understand why we are even talking about this,You see, there are reserves that exist with worse than third world conditions, there are reserves that have no drinkable water and children go to bed hungry, hell there are reserves where the people are so downtrodden that they dont even have a single high school graduate. These are issues you NEVER SEE ON MAINSTREAM MEDIA. we have a ridiculous percentage of the jail population given our own population numbers WHICH HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY AN ACTIVE GENOCIDE followed by a longer slower less active one, we have this abject injustice that happens daily in america and its completely ignored but a few loudmouths can complain about the name of a sports team and get massive media coverage? I recently saw that percentage wise more native americans have medals for valour defending america and Canada than any other ethnicity by percentage, yet I have never seen that on mainstream media. I have seen that Native youth are rising up to be seen and heard all across north america, but I dont see you covering that, I see you talking to a few randoms about a sports team.

You might wish we would disappear but we wont, and even if you succeed in changing the teams name, you won't make us go away.
 
Not to throw gas on the fire so to speak, but it has been my experience in being a casual observer of history that those 'granolas' on the far left of issues like this are easily satisfied with the symbolic gesture of something like a name change as opposed to actually looking into the depth of an issue or problem and try to find a real solution.

people talk about being horrified at want and hunger overseas and fail to recognize that it is happening here in the USA, and not just to Native Americans or those in Appalachia.
 
Rymanofthenorth said:
These are issues you NEVER SEE ON MAINSTREAM MEDIA.
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Tansei, Ryman!

Had it not been for the issue of changing the Redskins name, I would've remained ignorant to the severity of the plight of Native Americans. Certainly, I have some awareness that life on the reservation sucks. But to what degree, I suppose I've never really considered it. If the mainstream media covers anything related to Natives Americans, it's almost never about the appalling conditions. Instead, all I've run across are the every-so-often debates about the sports mascots and the enormous wealth generated from casinos. You might say, I've been led to think that the situation is getting better and the only care is appeasing some that may be offended by a sport team's choice of moniker.

This thread is teaching me that my senses are dulled. I want to change that.

My hope is that the debate over name change sheds more light on the real issues. Keep posting the personal stories that shed more light on these conditions.
 
skinsfan12 said:
Tansei, Ryman!

Had it not been for the issue of changing the Redskins name, I would've remained ignorant to the severity of the plight of Native Americans. Certainly, I have some awareness that life on the reservation sucks. But to what degree, I suppose I've never really considered it. If the mainstream media covers anything related to Natives Americans, it's almost never about the appalling conditions. Instead, all I've run across are the every-so-often debates about the sports mascots and the enormous wealth generated from casinos. You might say, I've been led to think that the situation is getting better and the only care is appeasing some that may be offended by a sport team's choice of moniker.

This thread is teaching me that my senses are dulled. I want to change that.

My hope is that the debate over name change sheds more light on the real issues. Keep posting the personal stories that shed more light on these conditions.
Click to expand...

That's the funny thing about those casinos. It's only made money for like 3 tribes. A few others have tried it, and it didn't really do much for them. But everybody knows about that, but not about how the commod food that many rezes get is so high in sodium and such that it's giving health problems....
 
there are a few reserves that have casinos, mostly in cali, a few in massaschusetts, but the vast majority of reserves are poor, worse yet the majority of reserves are worse than third world countries. don't take my word for it, I suggest going to places like Pine ridge of pretty much any reserve in the southwest, particularly the pima and apache reserves. There are some bad reserves up here but nothing in Canada even approaches some of the reserves in the states its a really horrible thing to see.
 
Rymanofthenorth said:
there are a few reserves that have casinos, mostly in cali, a few in massaschusetts, but the vast majority of reserves are poor, worse yet the majority of reserves are worse than third world countries. don't take my word for it, I suggest going to places like Pine ridge of pretty much any reserve in the southwest, particularly the pima and apache reserves. There are some bad reserves up here but nothing in Canada even approaches some of the reserves in the states its a really horrible thing to see.
Click to expand...

I went to elementary school in Tempe, AZ, and had several friends who lived on the Pima reservation out there. Its really bad, parts of it are like the hovels/metal sheds you see in Africa. Dirt, dirt poor. Granted this was 20+ years ago, but I can't imagine its gotten that much better.
 
Literally: just look up the poorest counties in the nation, and correlate it to where Native reservations are. You will find quite a few in the top 50.
 
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