March 24th: A Letter from Dan Snyder

[Rymanofthenorth]

The point, Ax, is that america wasn't the pillar of morals and ethics that american history profs tend to espouse. even reading your post you make several statements that are either ignorant out of actual ignorance (which I tend to give you the benefit of the doubt on) or bigotry which is actually what I tend to see much more of.

your statement about the white kids who were killed, I do not advocate for the killing of children, but those children were unfortunate victims who were placed in harms way by their parents, its sad and tragic, but blaming Native people for defending the small amounts of land they had left is the ultimate in victim blaming here. those kids would never have been killed had their idiot parents not settled on Native land, the indian kids who were killed, were often killed in their own villages on their own land, so no there is no moral equivalence here.

I dont pretend not to see race, or ethnicity, people who say that they do, actually see it in far more depth than people who are simply not concerned with it, but the gods honest truth here is that white people did some pretty foul shit back in the day, and even though I have faith that none of the white people I call friends would have supported it or even been ok with it, the fact remains they live in a society that benefitted from it and still benefits from it.

Boone, its an unpleasant thing to confront, but white privilege exists, and its at the core of this entire argument. what the redskins need to realise is that getting white people to tell indians that the name isnt bad , isnt gonna work, its achieving the opposite effect, you need more native people stepping up and saying its not offensive.

 

[Special K]

Ryman - Boone is not saying the discussion of racial relations between Native Americans and "Whites" cannot be confronted on this website. He's saying that the discussion needs to be taken to the appropriate forum, which in this case is The Political Asylum. This thread topic is about the announcement of the development and implementation of the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation and public reception of the announcement.

 

[Ax]

Here's a sample of what some of the Cree feel about the term Red Skins.

 

[CounterTrey]

The problem with this historical take is that it is vastly incomplete and when painted this way dramatically changes the context. Conquest is how maps on the entire planet were drawn throughout history. Like it or not the Indians were conquered. But here's the rub and where the history is incomplete. Those tribes had all but wiped out the actual ORIGINAL residents of the land. There's a reason why American Indians have red skin and more rounded eyes than their cousins the Inuit. Their ancestors conquered and wiped out the original natives who looked like Inuit and had brown skin and more "asian looking" eyes, not reddish skin with more rounded eyes which came from the influx of South American tribes. So while it is true that the white man was responsible for some horrible things and "MAYBE" should just apologize I'll refrain until I start hearing mea culpas from the descendents of their own conquering ancestors over their own bloody and barbaric past. You want some true honesty then start here Ryman, and Ax is right this "one side is evil for killing innocents and one side isn't" take just screams false equivalence and hypocrisy. You're splitting hairs. This take while partially justified loses considerable steam when met with actual anthropological history. In short American Indians have just as bloody of a past and to continue to point the finger when there isn't a single living person responsible for those atrocities is starting to get absurd. I don't owe anyone an apology or reparations for a GD thing and neither does my family line who didn't have a single slave or kill a single Indian or squat on any land.
Apologies to Boone for continuing this, I won't post any further on it unless it goes to PA or something.

 

[Ax]

FYI - I moved my conversation with Brother Ryman to PM. If he wants, I will start a thread in the PA.

Apologies for my side tracking of the thread.