Redskins

[Mike]

In a , the first of its kind in over a decade, 9 in 10 Native Americans say they aren't offended by the football team using the name Redskins.

Digging a little deeper, 7 in 10 said the word "Redskin" wasn't disrespectful at all. 8 in 10 said they would not be offended in a non-Native American called them "redskin".

This poll seems to come with an overwhelming sense of "See? What's the big deal?" It is being taken as evidence that the team shouldn't change their name, because if the overwhelming majority of Native Americans don't see anything wrong with it, then no one should.

So my question is: what about the 9% who ARE offended by this term? What percentage of a people needs to be offended by something before we generally agree that we should really stop doing that? I mean, there's a fraction of a percent of people in this country who feel that gendered pronouns should be eliminated from the language. They're largely being ignored. However, some unfortunate person was forced out of their position a decade ago for public using the word "niggardly". So what portion of a people need to be offended to make it offensive? How large a group do they have to be for the public to care? Like I say, I just feel like too many people are seeing this 90% number and saying, "Well, the redskin debate is over." What if it had only been 60%? 80%?

[Elle]

I'm sorry to be so blunt about this but that poll was a giant steaming piece of bullshit from start to finish. First, the poll was completely unrepresentative of the population it purports to describe. They asked people if they were Native Americans and most of the people who said yes did not even have an actual tribal affiliation. So you know, if I have some Native ancestry I could decide I'm an American Indian and answer this poll. They also surveyed only five hundred people. You can use surveys like that for some purposes but they have to be carefully representative to be useful, e.g. for political polling. This one was not carefully representative, on any level, of the entire population of Native Americans. When you actually DO look at official representatives of American Indians, you find that all the major tribal organizations are united in opposing the name. Hmm. Wonder if that might be more significant than a crap poll?

I'm not surprised that it's a bullshit poll, because it's commissioned by the WaPo looking for an excuse to stop the controversy over the Redskins name, since it's not changing courtesy of the team's asshole owner. This is 100% a follow the money situation, especially when you look at the way the poll results were advertised. It wasn't a case where they honestly presented the data and then drew only such conclusions as were warranted. Nope: redskins ain't racist anymore, says poll that done proved it!

Finally, suppose the entire world thought it was okay to use a racist slur that targets skin color and not ONLY skin color but a disgusting prize of warfare - a warfare on which this country was built by illegally seizing other people's land while slaughtering them indiscriminately. I don't care, it's still wrong. It's morally wrong and the idea should make people's skin crawl. And this goes for all the crap teams that use Native mascots while their fans whoop and holler in some sad imitation of being an Indian. They make me sick and they should make everyone sick, and the Washington Post publishing a self-serving poll that would be ripe fodder for any Critical Thinking 101 course to help secure someone's bank accounts doesn't change that fact.

Just be glad I'm not telling you what I really think, I guess, as that would be worse and more tl;dr.

[akiva]

I agree with Lucy--it's an invalid poll, and the name is offensive. I get a front row seat to the issue. And the owner of the team is a . To give you an idea how much of a shitbag he is, after that article was published, Snyder sued. He figured that since the publisher was a small weekly free paper they'd cave. But they didn't, and Snyder withdrew his lawsuit.

And of course, perfectly captures the preposterousness of Snyder's view (and it's really fucking funny too).

[Mike]

I already thought much of that. Even the phrasing of the questions was wonky. "Are you offended or not really bothered by this?" A better question (or a good follow up) would have been, "Do you think the Redskins should change their name?" But the flaws of the poll aren't what I'm interested in. What I'm interested in is the idea that, "Only 10% of affected people are offended, therefore, we can safely ignore them." It's apparently morally acceptable to ignore the feelings of 10% of a population, but not 80%. I don't get that. To me, 10% seems like a lot.

My point is that even if you accept this info as 100% valid, I still don't see how it justifies continuing this behavior.

[Elle]

I'm trying to find some more meaningful way to respond to your comment to encourage discussion, but just suppose I'm sitting here snarling and hissing noises of vigorous agreement over the whole 10% thing. Even Bentham would disapprove of this dirty business, as if utility calculations were unidimensional! And then some of us reject the calculation approach.

[Mike]

For example, a 7th grade social studies teacher has 140 students in her various classes. To prepare for tests, she has the class play History Day Jeopardy in which the teams are always divided up as girls vs. boys. She gets a couple complaints that this encourages sexist thinking and is unhealthy for kids that age and is not the most effective method of learning. So she asks all the parents, and 14 of the 140 families have a problem with it. So she decides that it's okay to continue with this, because 90% of them fell in the range of this-is-awesome all the way to I-don't-give-a-shit.

You would think that if 10% of the affected population is offended, you'd find a better way to handle it. Maybe it's just me.

[TheMaster]

I'll throw gas on the fire. Seeing as how I politically disagree with most of you, that should spark discussion.

I think the main part about the discussion you are wanting, mike, has been left out. When you look at something like this, it really shouldn't be the 10% that are offended that you worry about. The (and i'm making this number up so don't quote me, or do it's a free country [for now]) 50% that want the name to stay the same should be who you listen to (assuming the other 40% doesn't care either way [i'm part of that 40% most of the time]).

Why would you change something for a smaller group that thinks it is offensive when there is a larger group that wants to keep it the same? (once again throwing out the people that could care less if they change the name to potato)

[poorpete]

I also am very much against this name, and agree with Mike, it's weird to think when polling for offensiveness, if the majority thinks it's not offensive, it means it's not offensive.

Once the name is changed, people will eventually agree it's absurd. America tends to like things, especially things that have a "tradition", but once gone, we also move on.

Things we used to be okay with:
Segregation
Japanese Internment Camps
Mass-kidnapping and enslavement and torture of Africans and their descendants
Forcing Native Americans off their land, making them walk to Oklahoma, then taking over Oklahoma.

Things we are just now getting to banning:
Confederate Flags on public property
Gay conversion therapy

Does this mean that Notre Dame's Fighting Irish will be next? Probably not next, but in 20 years, I won't be surprised if it's changed too. And we'll be okay.

That said, I don't think the Washington Post was trying to goose the poll. Their editorial board already refuses to use the nickname, and some of their associate brands, like Slate, refuses too.

[Ronster]

forget gasoline, here's the methanol...

Do we not consent to the rule of persons democratically elected by a majority?

I agree with the idea that the name should be changed, don't misunderstand me, but what Mike is saying is that the 10% if loud enough should countermand the will of the 90%.

That is not democracy, that is an oligarchy, and an example of the "tail wagging the dog".

Our lives are governed by majority in almost every area of our societies, which is why votes are counted. Otherwise if people were forced to do something the minority chose, then why did we even vote. No, that kind of action would be tyrannical.

In our representative government, our senators and congresspersons are there because they won a majority of support. What if, say, in the 1980 election when Carter and Mondale carried GA & MN only, they had said, great, you're the president. It would have been wrong.

I believe it would be conceited and hypocritical to force the majority to do what the minority thinks is right, just because they think it is so or because they deem themselves more righteous or more intelligent. If our consent to be governed only extends to the point that we agree with it, then we do not truly consent.

Sometimes you have to stick to your issue even when you lose, but do so graciously. That is the long route, but in time perhaps you may win others to your side. Until then, you are obeying your conscience which is the most important thing to do.




tl;dr Do the right thing even when others disagree and you are not in the majority.

[akiva]

The problem about majority rule is tyranny of the majority. If the majority rule, for instance, we'd probably still have segregation--after all African-Americans are a minority. And maybe every non-Christian religion is banned. And maybe one political party bans the others. So the majority should not get whatever it wants.

[Elle]

Three points:
One, this is not a governmental decision but the decision of a private team owner to keep this team name. He can do whatever he damn well pleases, but other people can try to convince his league to sanction the team, or otherwise dispute his decision. The Washington Post can run whatever crap poll it wants to that wouldn't make it past a bunch of 19 year olds in their first critical reasoning course, and everyone else can point out that what they did is an intellectual embarrassment that provided not even the thinnest veneer for their baldly selfish motives.

Second, whether anyone finds the term offensive or not, it is definitely a direct and pejorative reference to skin color and race. Is it always okay, when a majority wants to use a pejorative to reference race and skin color despite a minority's objections that it's offensive? And if it's not always okay, why is this case different?

Third and finally, our Constitutional government is most explicitly NOT a "majority-rules" government, and thank God for that. It serves both purposes: to enact decisions of the majority AND to protect the rights of minorities. If this team-name thing were a question of legal rights or if it were a government-level decision in some other respect, we most certainly would not want the rule to be that the majority always rules over a minority. If a majority wants to violate the minority's rights, then the minority's rights should be protected - that is our Constitutional principle. We might fight about what constitutes a legitimate right or how rules should be applied, but the theoretical principle is still in effect and without it we would have a radically different and inferior form of government.

[Mike]

But this isn't 90 vs. 10. This is 15 vs. 10 with 75 who don't care. If they had rephrased the question to, "Would you be offended if the Redskins changed their name or would it not really matter to you?" You'd like get 5-10% who said this was important to them. 10% who don't see a reason to change,10% who demand change now, and then the overwhelming majority who says, "Yeah, go ahead and do whatever you want." Then suddenly keeping the name becomes the tyranny of oligarchy... all because we reframed the question.

And this isn't a matter of taxation or foreign policy or criminal law or anything like that... it's a debate over word choice.

AND it's not even a matter of government action. At no point is anyone here saying it should be illegal for them to continue to use this name. We're talking about common courtesy and the idea of "don't be a dick." If my choice of phrasing or labeling causes 10% of people to be offended, then as a decent human being, I'd look at a better way of expressing myself without pissing so many people off. Sometimes, pissing people off is what you want, but generally it's not good business.

We're not talking about rules of democracy. We're talking about rules of courtesy.

[Elle]

Sorry, I get exercised about the Redskins thing because I feel like American Indians are one of THE most ignored and trampled-upon populations in our country and it really, really should not be that way. The moral atrocities are not in the past, nor do they amount to misuse of names. They are going on right now in the present, as we insist on exploiting the land that supposedly sovereign nations inhabit, and we structure our laws so that we can encourage alcoholism on the reservation, and we don't honor treaties that are still in effect today, and... it just goes on and on. The redskins issue seems trivial in comparison to other issues but it's still an issue. It still lets people know exactly what the majority culture thinks of them and their value, and it breaks my heart that we would do that to other human beings. Then some people get really pissed off when a Native team refers to themselves as Fightin' Whiteys to point out the hypocrisy.

[akiva]

[TheMaster]

[buckett]

Been done:

[buckett]

Although I'm partial to this shirt Bomani Jones wore on ESPN a month or so ago:

[poorpete]

I'll throw in this.

Minority opinion + empathy with minority's opinion could equal a majority.

Minority opinion + empathy + compromises could equal a majority too. Often, this is the case. See Cleveland Indians keeping their name but ever so slowly retiring their mascot.

[poorpete]

[Ronster]

yeah, we all know that brunettes are the majority,not blondes, so the picture on it needs to be fixed.

A team of gingers would be good too.