[Itse]

First, I stand corrected on that article, thanks Eddy, and sorry. Forgot where this started.

Sorry for this being too long, too tired to put together compact thougths and prioritize.

Originally Posted by Vulcan

That more or less put them as less then human or as characterizations that weren't complementary.

Thing is, we don't live in the 18th or 19th or 20th century anymore. Symbols are what they represent now. Unless of course you want to argue that the swastika is totally ok because it's an ancient symbol dating back to times of the Indus-culture.

Symbols are also not the thing itself. Meanings, such as primitivity, can be attached to and detached from them. Symbols can also be re-interpreted, and this has been done countless times over the history. To me it's far from obvious that the current image of Blackhawk is offensive to any actual person, living or dead.

This is why names should be handled on a case-by-case basis, not by blanket statements.

Redskins, not cool, Indians... eh. Blackhawks? Cool.

That's the thing. Not fanatically stating that all names of such history should be changed.

That they haven't spoken up much, doesn't take into consideration that they have a lot of worse problems to deal with, like just being considered full partners in our society which after years of being demeaned, they have had a hard time speaking up until recently.

Possible, but there is nothing really in this thread that convinces me of that. The one small poll quoted had a lot more people in it than were quoted in the OP link.

Sitting back across the ocean Europeans often have this idealized view of the natives here and don't realize how they have been treated over the years.

Oh look, you totally made an comically ignorant generalization of about a billion people there. Kind of funny.

I don't know how this will turn out but yeah, the First Nations people should be the ones who decide and the Washington Redskins team shouldn't have any say about it.

I agree that propably that name should go, but there is such a thing as the law, which states that someone does own the image and the brand, and you need to prove your argumentation before you can tell them to do anything about what is theirs. Also, and this is coming from a dirty commie, it really is not fair to ask someone to spend millions to rebrand their product just because some people don't like it. There has to be a little more to it.

This case might have that, but I have seen little evidence of it here, and I think it's been poorly argumented for, except by "it's common sense", worded in many different ways. And "common sense" argument is often a cover for not really having a point.

I do agree that it's best left up to the "natives" for the lack of perfect solutions. (Although personally I think of it as a kind of a ridiculous term, since they are no more or less native than anyone else born on that continent. But then again I also think that all nationalism is essentially proto-fascism anyway, so maybe it's just the anarchist in me.)

However some on this thread have decisively stated that the Blackhaws should change their name, no questions asked from anyone. When it's really none of our business. Which is typical whitey supremacy complex.

On a more personal level, I think it's ridiculous and counter-productive for people living today to want to self-identify as 18th and 19th century "indians" or their descendants. Because seriously, in my eyes that's what this is about. They might prefer to call themselves First Nations, native Americans or what ever, but when they start throwing fits over imagery that is clearly pop culture "indian", they are in effect saying that they want to own "being indian". I think that's just dumb and the last thing they should be doing. I know that's not a nice thing to say, but I think it's a fair comment in this discussion.

To me it would make much more sense to detach themselves from it. And no, this does not mean detaching yourself from your culture, because "indians" are already almost completely detached from anything actually native American. Just like pop culture vikings are in effect completely separate from historical vikings, which is one reason why the two sets of images can peacefully co-exist without anybody being bothered by it. (Except for some historians.)

The real question is this;

Is this name-changing business of any use?

Hiding away native American warrior imagery does not make people of native American heritage any more rich or white. Does it make the "dirty redskin" stereotype any less dirty and primitive? I think that's questionable. It does make it less warriorlike. Whether this is good or not is hard to say.

There will also always be racism. Doing "something" for the sake of being "sensitive" does not necessarily help anything, but can actually end up being something that inflames racial tensions. For example by touching something that is precious to millions of mostly white males for reasons many of them will not understand. (If you really wanted to play devils advocate, you could argue that cultural sensitivity goes both ways. Exotic warriors of all kinds are an important part of sports culture.)

And again, this whole thing stinks like whitewashing. "Instead of doing anything about this, let's hide these symbols so we don't have to deal with it." Just ask post WWII Germans how much hiding your old symbols will do to detaching yourself from past stigmas.

Even more generally, I dislike the idea that history is somehow owned by someone. If you ask me, nobody living today has anything to do with "indians". I feel this is one of those things that does as much to keep the culture of victimization alive as much as it does to leave it behind us.