Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 04:20 PM) From this summer: http://cips.csusb.edu/docs/PressRelease.pdf That's a pretty radical shift from the study I linked to.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 04:19 PM) You're using terms like "goalposts" and "meme," but I'm not sure you know what they actually mean. I've been pretty consistent in asking you to explain why it's okay to keep using a racial slur. I've also consistently asked you to explain why stopping using that racial slur is worse for AmerIndian causes than continuing to use it. You've done nothing but hand-waive that away and insist that not using racial slurs is akin to censorship, and that really nobody should find them offensive in the first place. What you've continually failed to actually address are the original goal posts. Regardless of your insistence that they shouldn't, substantial numbers of AmerIndians find the continued use of this racial slur offensive. Now, complete the following sentence: "Nevertheless, Dan Snyder should continue to use a racial slur as his team's name because ____________." That's the original goalpost, and you keep trying to talk about other things. Guessing here.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 04:14 PM) sorry for the brevity, insert "because AmerIndians believe it is offensive" after every time I said it's offensive. SOME do.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 04:02 PM) There are multiple AmerIndian groups that have worked to get the name changed. Why is that not sufficient to stop using a racial slur? Why is it so important to some to continue to use racial slurs? There are a lot of interest groups promoting a lot of things. That doesn't mean they speak for the majority of their respective groups.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 04:00 PM) Weird, I thought I explicitly said already that I can't because I'm not the target of it? Oh, wait, I did! It might. What if a plurality do? What if a substantial minority do? But you keep saying it's offensive. How do you know if you're not part of the group?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 03:59 PM) Racial slurs targeted at disenfranchised minorities, especially those with the history of that word, no. Certainly not within "40-50 years," which is still within living memory of many people who had to literally risk their lives in order to get their basic civil liberties. If you're going to argue that there are bigger issues facing the AmerIndian community (there are! literally no one on this planet would disagree!), you can't argue that it's also okay to continue using racial slurs and caricatures targeted at them because they may not be used as frequently anymore (except every time they are used to depict an AmerIndian as the NFL team's logo!) Ok, fine, put it at 80 years. The point is if it's no longer being used for that reason, it's lost that connotation. I don't see a problem using it when that's the case. No one uses "redskins" anymore and hasn't for a very long time.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/10/08/...kins-is-a-slur/ WASHINGTON — The name of a certain pro football team in Washington, D.C., has inspired protests, hearings, editorials, lawsuits, letters from Congress, even a presidential nudge. Yet behind the headlines, it’s unclear how many Native Americans think “Redskins” is a racial slur. Perhaps this uncertainty shouldn’t matter — because the word has an undeniably racist history, or because the team says it uses the word with respect, or because in a truly decent society, some would argue, what hurts a few should be avoided by all. But the thoughts and beliefs of native people are the basis of the debate over changing the team name. And looking across the breadth of Native America — with 2 million Indians enrolled in 566 federally recognized tribes, plus another 3.2 million who tell the Census they are Indian — it’s difficult to tell how many are opposed to the name. The controversy has peaked in the last few days. President Barack Obama said Saturday he would consider getting rid of the name if he owned the team, and the NFL took the unprecedented step Monday of promising to meet with the Oneida Indian Nation, which is waging a national ad campaign against the league. Oneida Nation: Taxpayers Can’t Pay to Help Redskins Profit off of ‘Racial Slur’ What gets far less attention, though, is this: There are Native American schools that call their teams Redskins. The term is used affectionately by some natives, similar to the way the N-word is used by some African-Americans. In the only recent poll to ask native people about the subject, 90 percent of respondents did not consider the term offensive, although many question the cultural credentials of the respondents. All of which underscores the oft-overlooked diversity within Native America. “Marginalized communities are too often treated monolithically,” said Carter Meland, a professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. “Stories on the mascot issue always end up exploring whether it is right or it is wrong, respectful or disrespectful,” said Meland, an Ojibwe Indian. He believes Indian mascots are disrespectful, but said: “It would be interesting to get a sense of the diversity of opinion within a native community.” Those communities vary widely. Tommy Yazzie, superintendent of the Red Mesa school district on the Navajo Nation reservation, grew up when Navajo children were forced into boarding schools to disconnect them from their culture. Some were punished for speaking their native language. Today, he sees environmental issues as the biggest threat to his people. The high school football team in his district is the Red Mesa Redskins. Redskins Fan Cried Over Trademark Ruling “We just don’t think that (name) is an issue,” Yazzie said. “There are more important things like busing our kids to school, the water settlement, the land quality, the air that surrounds us. Those are issues we can take sides on.” “Society, they think it’s more derogatory because of the recent discussions,” Yazzie said. “In its pure form, a lot of Native American men, you go into the sweat lodge with what you’ve got — your skin. I don’t see it as derogatory.” Neither does Eunice Davidson, a Dakota Sioux who lives on the Spirit Lake reservation in North Dakota. “It more or less shows that they approve of our history,” she said. North Dakota was the scene of a similar controversy over the state university’s Fighting Sioux nickname. It was decisively scrapped in a 2012 statewide vote — after the Spirit Lake reservation voted in 2010 to keep it. Davidson said that if she could speak to Dan Snyder, the Washington team owner who has vowed never to change the name, “I would say I stand with him . we don’t want our history to be forgotten.” In 2004, the National Annenberg Election Survey asked 768 people who identified themselves as Indian whether they found the name “Washington Redskins” offensive. Almost 90 percent said it did not bother them. But the Indian activist Suzan Shown Harjo, who has filed a lawsuit seeking to strip the “Redskins” trademark from the football team, said the poll neglected to ask some crucial questions. “Are you a tribal person? What is your nation? What is your tribe? Would you say you are culturally or socially or politically native?” Harjo asked. Those without such connections cannot represent native opinions, she said. Indian support for the name “is really a classic case of internalized oppression,” Harjo said. “People taking on what has been said about them, how they have been described, to such an extent that they don’t even notice.” Harjo declines to estimate what percentage of native people oppose the name. But she notes that the many organizations supporting her lawsuit include the Cherokee, Comanche, Oneida and Seminole tribes, as well as the National Congress of American Indians, the largest intertribal organization, which represents more than 250 groups with a combined enrollment of 1.2 million. “The ‘Redskins’ trademark is disparaging to Native Americans and perpetuates a centuries-old stereotype of Native Americans as ‘blood-thirsty savages,’ ‘noble warriors’ and an ethnic group ‘frozen in history,'” the National Congress said in a brief filed in the lawsuit. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says the term is “very offensive and should be avoided.” But like another infamous racial epithet, the N-word, it has been redefined by some native people as a term of familiarity or endearment, often in abbreviated form, according to Meland, the Indian professor. “Of course, it is one thing for one ‘skin to call another ‘skin a ‘skin, but it has entirely different meaning when a non-Indian uses it,” Meland said in an email interview. It was a white man who applied it to this particular football team: Owner George Preston Marshall chose the name in 1932 partly to honor the head coach, William “Lone Star” Dietz, who was known as an Indian. “The Washington Redskins name has thus from its origin represented a positive meaning distinct from any disparagement that could be viewed in some other context,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in June to 10 members of Congress who challenged the name. Marshall, however, had a reputation as a racist. He was the last NFL owner who refused to sign black players — the federal government forced him to integrate in 1962 by threatening to cancel the lease on his stadium. When he died in 1969, his will created a Redskins Foundation but stipulated that it never support “the principle of racial integration in any form.” And Dietz, the namesake Redskin, may not have even been a real Indian. Dietz served jail time for charges that he falsely registered for the draft as an Indian in order to avoid service. According to an investigation by the Indian Country Today newspaper, he stole the identity of a missing Oglala Sioux man. Now, 81 years into this jumbled identity tale, the saga seems to finally be coming to a head. The NFL’s tone has shifted over the last few months, from defiance to conciliation. “If we are offending one person,” Goodell, the NFL commissioner, said last month, “we need to be listening.”

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 03:51 PM) You don't get to decide whether a group targeted by a racial slur gets to find it "cute and funny" and whether or not it matters if they're subjected to racial slurs and stereotypes. Members of that group do. So which argument are you actually making here? That there are more important issues, or that this isn't even a racial slur in the first place and there's no reason to change it? Lol, I love this. He can't, but you can because you agree with the group. Gotcha. What if it turns out that the majority of native americans DON'T find it offensive? Does that matter?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 03:54 PM) jesus christ that is just awful So words can never lose their negative connotation? It's not a question of "oh just get used to it." It's that the word basically drops out of the lexicon of society for decades but for one instance where it's being used as a nickname for a team. edit: added "for decades."

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 03:32 PM) I'm not someone targeted by the slur, but there are people who are who want it changed. Why should we accept ss2k5's casual dismissal of their concerns as unimportant? I don't think he's saying it's unimportant, but it's a typical white guilt solution to a much larger and more difficult problem. It's a pat-yourself-on-the-back-you've-done-a-good-job-social-activist type issue. OMG KATRINA WAS A TRAVESTY, DETROIT IS A MESS!, WHITE COP KILLERS! Yawn, ok i'm over that now. I've provided my faux-outrage and can feel good about it now, so, what's the next cause gang? Making fun of fat people? Yes, i'm sure there are an incredibly small number of people who feel offended by the name because they think it's a direct slur against them. Even though we all know it's not. It's a name that might have been, but no longer is given its new meaning and context. But I ask again, out of 100 people, how many would associate the name with actual native americans versus a football team? That should be the real test here. You can't use Chicago N***** because it clearly doesn't have the same meaning or context. If the use of "n*****" went out of style 40-50 years ago, and we rarely, if ever, hear anyone use it as a slur today, and a professional league maintained that name throughout that time, then yeah, i'd say keep it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 03:23 PM) Who are you to say that an NFL team no longer using a racial slur would not improve anyone else's life? Who are you to say that it will?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 12:54 PM) Yeah, a lot of the time it is comfort. A lot of people just "like" one club more than the other and therefore probably put better swings on it than clubs they don't "like." It can be a dynamic loft issue, but that is unlikely...but possible...say you were delofting your short irons by moving the shaft angle forward or something, but actually adding loft to your longer irons by having an impact position where your shaft angle was further back....but with you, you've got a short distance sort of in the middle... I think it's a matter of swing speed. I think I usually try to crush my PW and long irons, whereas my 6-9 irons are more laid back depending on the distance i'm going for.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 01:34 PM) On the other hand, these ND complaints are bad faith on their face and only ever advanced by people trying to defend Redskins, chief wahoo etc. Of course they are, because white people can never complain about anything. White males especially.

I'd still like someone to cite an example of when "redskin" was used as a derogatory word in the last, i dunno, 40 years. I could see this argument back when the team was naming itself (if 2014 society was implanted in the early 20th century). Same with movies like Peter Pan. But now? in 2014? No. Poll 100 people about the term "Washington Redskins" and how many do you honestly believe would think you're talking about a Native American or tribe? If they aren't thinking about this naming "controversy," the answer would be very few, if any.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 01:09 PM) If there was a native american sitting next to you and you were asked about the football team in Washington DC you'd feel comfortable using that term and be surprised if he or she took offense? I would feel comfortable yes. I probably would not be surprised if they took offense, because for the last 6 months i've been told what a terrible word it is and how native americans probably don't like it (by a bunch of white people, mind you).

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 12:39 PM) Calling a Native American a redskin is a racial slur. Just because a football team uses it as a nickname doesn't suddenly make it not so. Right, but I'm not calling a Native American a redskin. I'm calling a football team a nickname in a discussion about football with a Native American. You can separate the two.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 12:30 PM) Do you use racial slurs face to face with people? No, but I don't think referring to a nickname of a football team is equivalent to using a racial slur.

I'm weird with my irons and I think it's mostly mental. I can hit a PW 130-135. My 7 is like 155-160 max. My 5 iron about 200-205. It makes little sense.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 12:16 PM) http://www.und.com/trads/nd-m-fb-name.html So, based on that, if the Irish got together and found that it was offensive to them, I think they'd have a legitimate case. Instead, I think, given the Irish heritage of the school, they view it as a source of pride anymore. I'm not Irish nor an alum of ND nor anything related to ND nor a citizen of Indiana, so I have no horse in that race. Well i'm Irish, or at least mostly Irish, and I find it offensive. I'm sure I can drum up about 5% of Irish people to agree with me. So it should be changed. Rabble, rabble, rabble.

Pssh, i'm in agreement with Ditka. This entire issue got a bunch of PC liberals on a witch hunt, that's the only reason this became an off season scandal. That doesn't make the term more or less derogatory, but it's 100% the truth. I also laugh at Mully and Hanley and the other ass clowns out there who are taking the "high road" and deciding they won't use the term (while simultaneously arguing that "Fighting Irish" isn't derogatory because it refers to having a fighting spirit...despite the f***ing mascot being a leprechaun with his f'n fists in the air). f*** that. Where were you last year? Or the year before? Or for the last 80 years or whatever. What, it just suddenly became a terrible word this summer when it became a media story? GMAFB. Words change meaning over time, for good and bad. Just because a word used to be derogatory doesn't mean it's always derogatory. No one identifies Washington Redskins with native americans. It's all about the football team.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 05:13 PM) If he were firing at Brown as brown was fleeing, those shots would be unjustifiable. Would that make shooting Brown, even if he turned and came back, unjustifiable? I'm not sure how that would fall out. Yeah, I think it muddles it for sure. I think there's that issue of "inviting" or creating the serious threat that requires deadly force. That's the argument Brown's attorney would make anyway. To me, I dunno that I buy that, especially if there were shots fired and Brown turned around, waited and then ran after the cop. If there was some pause in between, Brown still has time to choose whether to attack and surrender.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 05:03 PM) Let's assume that Brown thought he could run away and that Officer Wilson wasn't going to fire at him, because you don't expect the police to shoot you down from behind if you're unarmed, even if you had confronted him violently 30 seconds ago. Fight or flight response, right? Then you realize he is shooting at you...and that your life might be in danger even. Do you 1) put your hands up and risk being killed surrendering, or 2) charge at the officer, knowing you're unlikely to survive that 35 foot distance against a trained officer with his gun trained on you, also realizing you're not exactly a small or elusive target? Logically, if confronted with this scenario in a simulation, almost nobody would run at the officer and think they're going to survive unless they feel there's no other alternative. As there was reportedly marijuana in his system and not a stimulant, wouldn't that make him LESS likely to fly at the officer from so far away? I see what you're saying, but this is a man who obviously didn't think logically or even morally. He's a thief and a bully given his actions at the convenient store, and he's also incredibly stupid for picking a fight with a cop. All three things that the vast majority of people would never do. So "logic" can be thrown out the window. He was capable of doing anything.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 05:00 PM) But it should get us somewhere. IF Wilson shoots at Brown while Brown is retreating, would you agree that Wilson would not have been in immediate danger of serious bodily harm (or whatever the standard for use of deadly force is) when he fired those shots? You said, "But we know he wasn't 'fleeing' when he was shot," but if he was fleeing when he was shot AT that certainly changes the narrative quite a bit... EDIT: First line. Yes, but I think we also know the "kill shot" could not have occurred from a backwards angle. He had to have been facing forward. The narrative doesn't really change because if anything that gives Brown an excuse for turning around. It still doesn't excuse the shooting if Brown is just standing there with his hands up. And it doesn't negate Wilson's justifiable use of force IF Brown was running at him. I guess it could open an argument that he "invited" Brown to attack him, in his own self defense, but that seems like a weak argument.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 04:42 PM) That's why we need the ballistics report. Supposedly, Brown was shot 6 times. The weapon went off at least once when they were struggling over it (according to most witness accounts). How many shots were taken...and what was Michael Brown's initial position when the first shot was fired? Did the officer fire at him while he was fleeing/with his back turned, which might have surprised Brown and caused him to turn around, knowing he wasn't going to outrun a much smaller officer with a gun? It's not exactly a rational idea for someone to charge into a police officer's path of fire from 35 feet away unless something has precipitated the thought that this is the only course of action left remaining to survive...that running away wasn't an option. Huh? From 35 feet running at someone that is shooting you is a better option than running away?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 04:45 PM) It might as well be Matt Drudge or Fox News, lol. Breitbart.com and "Big Government" in the link of a story, c'mon, that's not going to be close to impartial, any more than CNBC anchors like Rachel Maddow or The Ed Show would be reliable sources for unbiased reporting. Yes, he has his spin on it, but he's also citing their original statements.