Judge Sides With Redskins in Team Name Suit

[70Chip]

I don't think it would be the end of the world if they changed the name. What I don't get is that some people claim the logo that's on the helmets is offensive. Anyone want to explain that one? I mean if they were the Warriors or the Tribe or some other name, wouldn't the logo be okay?

For me it's about football. They could go completely without a nickname for all I care. They could call themseves coffee table or candy bar or mandolin and I don't care as long as they line up with 11 and play the Cowboys and do it in Washington.

[memphisskin]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

This whole issue is PC at its worst. I don't believe for one second the owners who created these team names intended ANY racism. Plus if 90% of the folks who are perceived by some to be offended, aren't, it's a non-issue.

Won't go into Vikings, but they are no longer around. American Indians still do, well at least 3 million of them do.

I can believe that the majority of Redskins fans do not intend any racism when mentioning the team. I don't think any of us have any racist intentions when we buy Redskins gear, or even come into The Warpath and type what we feel about the Redskins. But I also don't think any one of us started liking the Washington Redskins because it was a way to celebrate the American Indian, or 90% of us sure didn't.

I won't belabor this, but that survey really only speaks to the 90% of people they surveyed, it cannot and should not be used to extrapolate to the greater population. So 90% of the people the University of Pennsylvania surveyed in 2003 did not find the term Redskin offensive. Without seeing their methodology their are two major problems with this reasoning. 1) Not every American Indian had an equal chance of being chosen to participate in this survey, so the survey results only apply to the survey participants which in this case is 768 people. 2) I haven't seen their methodology but how the question was asked in large part dictates the answer. By the information given in the article there is no way to tell if they were asked to rank certain words, or to give their response to certain words, or how the question was framed. So to use this survey as proof is at the least spurious and possibly disingenous.

I saw that George Preston Marshall named the team after his coach. So in 1933, George Marshall was so enamored with his American Indian coach that he nicknamed his team the Redskins to celebrate the coaches ancestry? In 1933? In Boston in 1933? And that's a fact? I guess King Kong was just about a giant gorilla wreaking havoc on New York too, huh? And Tarzan was just a story about a guy raised by apes who somehow became King of the Jungle? Dude if you piss in my water and call it lemonade it doesn't make it so, its still piss.

[itvnetop]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

I'm sorry, but WTF are you talking about? This post is so full of convoluted nonsense I can't even express how ridiculous it is. It sounds like you're trying desperately to find a way to dismiss the overwhelming empirical evidence against your argument.

So basically, the Native Americans are weak and can't stand up for themselves, so that's why they figure I might as well vote for complacency in this MSNBC poll? FOR WHAT? TO WHAT END? FOR WHAT PURPOSE? You make it sound like they're women with battered wives syndrome.

If you're asked in a harmless poll whether you find something offensive, you don't have to stand up and take a stand, or fight the good fight, or anything like that. You give your answer, you hang up the phone, and you go back to reading your kids a bedtime story. They have no reason to say they're not offended if in fact they are.

Bottom line: An astoundingly OVERWHELMING percentage said they did not find it offensive. You can read all the ridiculous books you want. But you can't change facts.

If you've read any of these books, I'd doubt you'd call them ridiculous. Go ahead and ignore the correlation between their past decimation and the resulting outcome (seen in the state of the general NA population today). I wouldn't call the Native American tribes "weak" as being the reason they don't stand up for themselves. If you'd taken the time to read anything regarding their current state in this country, you wouldn't use a poll to dismiss the lack of outcry. You have the audacity to call my statements "convoluted nonsense" and "desperate", yet you'll take one poll's numbers over hundreds of years of history, nearly every dictionary's inclusion of the word "offensive" (in the definition of "redskins") and tons of books/research that discuss the Native American experience... all which provide the very reasons why we aren't able to see a noticeable movement on their behalf.

I'm not desperately grasping at anything... I'm adding to a discussion. If you polled African-Americans in the 50s, I'm guessing the overwhelming majority weren't offended at the term "colored" back then either. Are you saying we have to wait until some future point in time where the polls will reflect otherwise for NAs? *Although, I'd like to fast forward to such a time in order to see if your stance on our team's name was really, in fact, dictated by poll numbers. The term "redskins" isn't really even borderline in today's non-football vernacular. Quite the opposite, the majority of dictionary publishers, English professors and most citizens (in general) cite an offensiveness with this term when used to describe the Native American people. Why do we have to wait until there's some type of government-sponsored poll of Native Americans to do the right thing? Several universities have already reversed their long-standing traditions... they've waken up. As a society, we make the conscious decision to render words obsolete- we don't have to wait until the offending group deems it so.

But feel free to continue responding to something you don't agree with using emotional pejoratives... everything's black and white, right?

[itvnetop]

For those that will only listen to some random poll for their sole basis of argument supporting their case, there's always another poll to state the opposite:

American Indian Opinion Leaders Poll

Point being? We can find fault with any poll we pull up. Questionable sampling methods used in an SI or MSNBC poll that reflects non-offensiveness or the poll above, conducted by a NA newspaper.

Here are a few links to organizations trying to make a stance (just do a quick google search):

Allarm
STAR
AI Movement
General listing

[KLHJ2]

My Great Aunt (by marriage) is a Native American, American Indian, or whatever the hell you want to call her. I prefer American, but she goes by Bev (Beverly). She is originally from Michigan and moved here as a young adult. She is one of the biggest MFin Redskins Fans on this side of the Potomac. The name is not offensive to her, she embraces it. HTTR!

[skinsguy]

Funny how this is always discussed each and every off-season. I'm getting tired of hearing it. Screw the PC movement. I live in the United States of America and not the United States of the Offended.

If the sentiment that the Vikings name is ok because there are no Vikings around, how about the Fighting Irish? Plenty of Irish still around. It's all bunch of stupid bunk. Give over it already.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by memphisskin

Won't go into Vikings, but they are no longer around. American Indians still do, well at least 3 million of them do.

There are plenty of people with Nordic ancestry around, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and many other. I've never heard one complaint of being offended by the Viking name. Plenty of Irish around, and the "Fighting Irish" has often been mentioned as a veiled reference to the "drunk Irishman" sterotype. No Irish are compaining about ND. Those were just a couple that came to mind quickly. There are other many other team names/mascots people could find offensive.

I saw that George Preston Marshall named the team after his coach. So in 1933, George Marshall was so enamored with his American Indian coach that he nicknamed his team the Redskins to celebrate the coaches ancestry? In 1933? In Boston in 1933? And that's a fact?

Actually some more background so you don't think I'm "pissing in your water". The Boston Braves came from the old Duluth Eskimos, who were bankrupt (I guess that team name was offensive too). Marshall wanted to distinguish his team from the Boston Braves baseball team, but keep with the same Indian theme. This was also an honor to his new coach William "Lone Star" Dietz, a full blooded Indian who played with Jim Thorpe at Carlisle. The team moved from Braves Field to Fenway Park and changed the name to Redskins.

For the record, my wife has Indian ancestry in her background and has no problem with the team name, should we include her in the survey too?

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by itvnetop

If you've read any of these books, I'd doubt you'd call them ridiculous. Go ahead and ignore the correlation between their past decimation and the resulting outcome (seen in the state of the general NA population today). I wouldn't call the Native American tribes "weak" as being the reason they don't stand up for themselves. If you'd taken the time to read anything regarding their current state in this country, you wouldn't use a poll to dismiss the lack of outcry. You have the audacity to call my statements "convoluted nonsense" and "desperate", yet you'll take one poll's numbers over hundreds of years of history, nearly every dictionary's inclusion of the word "offensive" (in the definition of "redskins") and tons of books/research that discuss the Native American experience... all which provide the very reasons why we aren't able to see a noticeable movement on their behalf.

I'm not desperately grasping at anything... I'm adding to a discussion. If you polled African-Americans in the 50s, I'm guessing the overwhelming majority weren't offended at the term "colored" back then either. Are you saying we have to wait until some future point in time where the polls will reflect otherwise for NAs? *Although, I'd like to fast forward to such a time in order to see if your stance on our team's name was really, in fact, dictated by poll numbers. The term "redskins" isn't really even borderline in today's non-football vernacular. Quite the opposite, the majority of dictionary publishers, English professors and most citizens (in general) cite an offensiveness with this term when used to describe the Native American people. Why do we have to wait until there's some type of government-sponsored poll of Native Americans to do the right thing? Several universities have already reversed their long-standing traditions... they've waken up. As a society, we make the conscious decision to render words obsolete- we don't have to wait until the offending group deems it so.

But feel free to continue responding to something you don't agree with using emotional pejoratives... everything's black and white, right?

You'd have to explain the math of this to me, I'm not quite getting it. So a book, written by one person, is supposed to carry more weight than one person's vote in a poll? Why? Because it's a book??

In the end, a book is one author's point of view.

When a poll is conducted by an Ivy League institution, you can rest assured that the population was sampled in a sufficiently random manner. Meaning when you sample 768 people in a random manner, you get a conclusive result that can be used to approximate the sentiments of the Native American population in general. And I think it's pretty safe to say that this poll does not carry a 50%+ margin of error - the overwhelming response of 90% - 10% says it all. I recognize most people don't understand statistical sampling and how it can be a true barometer for a population's sentiments - I can give a math lesson if you wish. To suggest that this poll means nothing because it only sampled a small portion of Native Americans is to completely dismiss the mathematical foundation for nearly every scientific and sociological research endeavor over the last 100 years.

Here's my question. Who the eff cares about what someone said in a book?? I've got a brain of my own, I don't need to read a book to be told what to think. I can consider the other side's point of view on my own, objectively, without reading these opinions. A book is one man's opinion - for every book you mention I can probably find a book with the opposing viewpoint. Mathematics, however, are cut and dry.

[memphisskin]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

Actually some more background so you don't think I'm "pissing in your water". The Boston Braves came from the old Duluth Eskimos, who were bankrupt (I guess that team name was offensive too). Marshall wanted to distinguish his team from the Boston Braves baseball team, but keep with the same Indian theme. This was also an honor to his new coach William "Lone Star" Dietz, a full blooded Indian who played with Jim Thorpe at Carlisle. The team moved
from Braves Field to Fenway Park and changed the name to Redskins.

For the record, my wife has Indian ancestry in her background and has no problem with the team name, should we include her in the survey too?

Wait, so you're telling me a man identified as "the leading racist in the NFL for 24 years" (courtesy of his wikipedia page) and one who only drafted a black man upon pressure from the federal government, chose a pejorative name for the team as a way to "honor" his coach? That is piss, not lemonade sir, and I shall not drink it!

Won't get into the argument about other team nicknames as it is irrelevant.

[SmootSmack]

It admittedly does get increasingly difficult to pretend that the team's name does not have some other connotation. And the really cold fact is that, because Native Americans have been so marginalized in our society (once their society), that the offensiveness passes unnoticed because there is really no one around to hear the tree fall in the forest. A name that gave that kind of depiction to Blacks or Ricans like me would get shouted down because there are enough people in that constituency with enough of a relevant voice sure to tell society that that is unacceptable.

Couple of ironies though. One is that the fact is that when you say the word "Redskins" in so-called mainstream U.S. society, what people think of first IS the football team, and NOT the ethnic group. Another is that research (which I don’t have right in front of me right now) reveals that Native Americans themselves throughout the years at all levels of sport have themselves named their teams Redskins. Hmm.

When people talked about "ni**ers" that word was laced with hatred and a misguided superiority at the time it was being said, with violence, lynchings, separate restrooms, back of the bus, you name it. But when we say the word Redskins today, there is no associated hatred or sense of
supremacy vis a vis Native Americans; the word comes out of the mouth without any associated negative baggage. Sure, it is the same "word," but the substance is not the same at all. The prevailing argument is that we should dispense with the word because it is offensive and does not
represent our society today. But since we know that it does not represent today's society, then the alleged offensive substance of the word has already been rendered meaningless !

Even on the team itself, I don't remember anyone thinking Mark Rypien was dumb or reviled as the quarterback because he was Native American; of course not. So, where is the real offensiveness? What was that we learned in school, "sticks and stones may break my bones..."

Growing up for me (and I’m sure others), the name depicted bravery and glory etc. and that, as far as the Washington Redskins were concerned specifically to be called a "true Redskin" was a badge of honor in the sports world and in the local community, as it stood for humble guys who worked hard on the field with great teamwork and gave to the community off of it. It was hardly
disparaging at all and really had nothing to do with offending Native Americans b/c again, Redskin conjured up the image of Darrell Green and Art Monk, not Sitting Bull.

As a minority myself, I sometimes find it perplexing that other minorities in the U.S. would look so quickly to self-identify as hyphenated, and to marginalize themselves by choosing to direct their collective energy to take up the cause of being offended by labels and semantics.

[MTK]

great post SS

[memphisskin]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

It admittedly does get increasingly difficult to pretend that the team's name does not have some other connotation. And the really cold fact is that, because Native Americans have been so marginalized in our society (once their society), that the offensiveness passes unnoticed because there is really no one around to hear the tree fall in the forest. A name that gave that kind of depiction to Blacks or Ricans like me would get shouted down because there are enough people in that constituency with enough of a relevant voice sure to tell society that that is unacceptable.

Couple of ironies though. One is that the fact is that when you say the word "Redskins" in so-called mainstream U.S. society, what people think of first IS the football team, and NOT the ethnic group. Another is that research (which I don’t have right in front of me right now) reveals that Native Americans themselves throughout the years at all levels of sport have themselves named their teams Redskins. Hmm.

When people talked about "ni**ers" that word was laced with hatred and a misguided superiority at the time it was being said, with violence, lynchings, separate restrooms, back of the bus, you name it. But when we say the word Redskins today, there is no associated hatred or sense of
supremacy vis a vis Native Americans; the word comes out of the mouth without any associated negative baggage. Sure, it is the same "word," but the substance is not the same at all. The prevailing argument is that we should dispense with the word because it is offensive and does not
represent our society today. But since we know that it does not represent today's society, then the alleged offensive substance of the word has already been rendered meaningless !

Even on the team itself, I don't remember anyone thinking Mark Rypien was dumb or reviled as the quarterback because he was Native American; of course not. So, where is the real offensiveness? What was that we learned in school, "sticks and stones may break my bones..."

Growing up for me (and I’m sure others), the name depicted bravery and glory etc. and that, as far as the Washington Redskins were concerned specifically to be called a "true Redskin" was a badge of honor in the sports world and in the local community, as it stood for humble guys who worked hard on the field with great teamwork and gave to the community off of it. It was hardly
disparaging at all and really had nothing to do with offending Native Americans b/c again, Redskin conjured up the image of Darrell Green and Art Monk, not Sitting Bull.

As a minority myself, I sometimes find it perplexing that other minorities in the U.S. would look so quickly to self-identify as hyphenated, and to marginalize themselves by choosing to direct their collective energy to take up the cause of being offended by labels and semantics.

Good points.

[SC Skins Fan]

Washington Werowance. Alliteration, allusion to actual history of local indigenous people, educative function, retains "Native American" heritage of team name. That's all, literally going back to more reading of ridiculous books (currently William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon).

[itvnetop]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

When a poll is conducted by an Ivy League institution, you can rest assured that the population was sampled in a sufficiently random manner. Meaning when you sample 768 people in a random manner, you get a conclusive result that can be used to approximate the sentiments of the Native American population in general. And I think it's pretty safe to say that this poll does not carry a 50%+ margin of error - the overwhelming response of 90% - 10% says it all. I recognize most people don't understand statistical sampling and how it can be a true barometer for a population's sentiments - I can give a math lesson if you wish. To suggest that this poll means nothing because it only sampled a small portion of Native Americans is to completely dismiss the mathematical foundation for nearly every scientific and sociological research endeavor over the last 100 years.

Here's my question. Who the eff cares about what someone said in a book?? I've got a brain of my own, I don't need to read a book to be told what to think. I can consider the other side's point of view on my own, objectively, without reading these opinions. A book is one man's opinion - for every book you mention I can probably find a book with the opposing viewpoint. Mathematics, however, are cut and dry.

I've actually read your posts re: statistics in other threads, Schneed. And I've actually taken three statistics classes in two different departments (in undergraduate and graduate levels). I'm going to guess (correct me if I'm wrong) that you've taken statistics in some type of economics or finance background. My two statistics classes were in a grad-level education psychology and undergrad sociological research.

I can almost tell what your next argument will be- "sociology and education are bunch of liberal hullabaloo and aren't legitimate resources for statistics." Now I ask you- who are you to say which statistics are more legitimate than another? What I did learn in my statistics classes (among concepts like random sampling, standard deviation, normal distribution, central limit theorem and f-tests) is that polls are reflections of numbers set to a sample. There aren't true measures of success when dealing in context. What I learned from statistics research, textbooks and instruction is that you're suppose to use stats (in the form of polls and hard numbers) as part of a larger schema.

Fine, I can't convince you to read anything re: NA history- continue as you will. I'll play your game of just dealing with polls and numbers, then. Let's take a hypothetical situation of GPA scores. Hypothetically speaking, is the student with the 4.0 GPA is smarter than the kid with a 3.7? Not necessarily... the student with the 4.0 just happened to get better grades. GPA doesn't account for honors classes, selected course load, extra-curricular activities, etc. If you take a line graph of SATs scores vs. college success, do the kids who scored higher on the tests plot higher on the y-axis? What I learned in my Educational and Evaluation class is that higher test scores don't equal success (and these results were from the polls and math you deem to tell the entire story). Math doesn't tell the entire story, but if math classes are the only ones you've ever bothered to take I can see why you'd have such a myopic view of things.

So how exactly does this pertain to what we're talking about? You say this poll reflects an overwhelming majority of NA who aren't offended by the term. There's a reason people tend to change their opinion about this very issue once they've done some actual research into it (yes, that includes reading books). Did you know several Redskins players also went from "who cares" to "now I understand" after a certain time? I don't have time to break down everything I've read, but since you're so stuck on math and hard numbers to tell the whole story, this may resonate somewhat:

In my research (years ago in high school and undergrad), I analyzed polls (yes hard numbers) that showed NAs have highly disproportionate levels of low self-esteem compared to other social groups. Statistics (which is what you're looking for) show that over half the NA population on reservations are unemployed. NAs are three times more likely to become alcoholics than other ethnic groups. These factors are direct causation of low self-worth. If a person has a low sense of self, chances are they're not going to be offended by someone hurling a personal insult against them. Why would he/she be offended by a negative connotation against the general group? Answer? He/she won't be... if they've got no sense of self in the first place, they don't find fault with the word to describe the group population. *Of course, this is just what I've come to learn- it's not something I pulled out of thin air... go ahead and dispute it with your innate logic that trumps years and years and specialized research and writing.

In polls where I've seen NA support for the term "redskins" and other sports mascots, college-educated NA are actually the total opposite. Those in college are overwhelmingly against these names. Yet look at these hard numbers: Poll conducted by National Center for Educational Statistics

Gee, if NAs make up less than 1% of the country's college enrollment I'd go out on a limb and say there aren't very many NAs that make it off the res. The ones that do are most certainly against it, but the numbers are so miniscule, the dissent pales in comparison to the "overwhelming" non-offended left on the reservations.

But I'm sure anything I say (including numbers, polls, official dictionary definitions, etc) are going to be summarily dismissed by what you know and how you think. Your assertion is that the majority of NAs polled find no offense to the term "redskins", thus the moniker is acceptable. My point of contention is that we don't need to wait for a NA poll conducted by an Ivy league to make the change. Who says you need to be NA to be offended?

[itvnetop]

And SS makes salient points... see we can discuss different points of view in respectful ways, right?