Quote:
Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout
I love the anti-PC jargon. It's like being politically correct is a bad thing.
Yes sometimes PC is goes too far out of context, but racial slurs isn't one.
One thing that I think is being argued effectively by nfotiu is whether Native Americans do indeed find the term to be racist.
Yes numerous tribes have spoken out against redskins, but are they a vocal minority, or is the term truly racist?
Personally I think it is and the amount of outcry is enough for me to agree. However, I don't know if this is a vocal minority.
I am totally fine with an accredited polling company putting together a questionnaire to find out.
So my questions would be:
At what point do we as a society accept Redskin as a racial slur? 30% respond yes, 50%?
Secondly, is it appropriate to conduct a poll to determine if n*gger is actually offensive to African Americans or has the PC police gone too far? Are there official statistics on this?
|
I have no idea what you mean by "we as a society", this issue is regarding a US football team. It has nothing to do with society outside of that context.
As for your dispute with polls, they've been regularly taken since the issue popped up, and while there shows a slight dip in support for the name, it's very clear if you're able to objectively gauge support for something, support for the Redskins name is going nowhere for a very long time.
Nextly, calling something racist, even if it's a group that's saying they find it racist, does not inherently make it so. What matters is the context upon which the word is said or used. There's more than sufficient logic in the notion that if these team names were really "racist", they would not be accepted, especially from fans of that team, never mind such wide support from the American football viewing audience, a league which is ridiculously sensitive to the issue of racism (and everything else) already. In order for something to be racist, racist intent needs to be shown, and on this issue it fails to pass that muster.
So this is why I see no logic in following along with this PC belief that a team must change their name based on these highly flawed rationales.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattyC
Yes. They are not Indians. That is not where they come from or where they reside. People who are from and live in India are Indians. I agree racism is in the intent, so maybe labeling the name Indian's as racist is incorrect (depending on the context) but a) why leave that up to interpretation? and b) It's just flat out wrong, so why are people still using it?
The word was conceived as racist and is still racist. And as said above, if you're using the US as your standard for racism, you are already very far behind.
No it doesn't. Racism is universal and global and not subject to a specific country's opinions on it. Redskin is a derogatory term for all Native people, whether they live in the States or know what football even is makes no difference.
|
Why leave that up to interpretation? Because the English language is entirely full of interpretation. Interpreting what someone means is the only value to language, and if there is no viewed racism here, if that word is not used (anymore or at all), then it's simply not racist.
Person X stubs their toe on a chair, spews out the N word, they're racist against blacks now? According to you, it doesn't matter what their intent is, it only matters what someone else thinks of it. The slippery slope of this and attempt to control language in this manner is, while not a novelty, still ridiculous.