Ugh, just had to relive the age old racism argument involving sports mascots, namely the Washington Redskins. Here’s how the whole thing goes if you’re hearing it for only the thousandth time: the Redskins mascot is an actual Native American guy, and it should possibly be changed because its offensive. While this is true, I think its important that Indian people condone this thought; the NFL should really be the least of your concerns. I grew up around Indians and here’s what I have to say to them on the topic:
While its obviously a troubling realization that the United States government, headed by former slave owners, pulled some extremely shady legal trickery in order to steal all of your land, and engaged in germ warfare (a term that they then took credit for while applying it to Hussein in a successful attempt to steal oil whilst carpet bombing a bunch of blue collar Muslims), and then condescendingly threw you a bone in the ability to run casinos which they then collect tax revenue on, I think its time to apply your angst towards a broader cause.
Let me explain how the U.S. government, and on a broader level – the ‘Conservative’ benefactors, such as those who own the Washington Redskins operate: They tend to do a lot of really fucked up shit and then hope that people forget about it while they invest in their friends businesses on the Dow. A common technique of the conservative movement is to just do a bunch more fucked up shit and then question why you are still dwelling on the older fucked up shit that they did while spitting out idiotic cliches such as “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”
This is, in fact, the dogma of the current United States neo-conservatism movement. Its called ‘neo-conservatism’ and not ‘conservatism’ because, if you take only a few minutes, you’ll find that the so labeled conservatives in this country are reckless spenders who enjoy driving our country into debt and then profiting on it. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and look up the budget of the Bush administration, or simply drive by a gas station and take a gander at the prices.
Anyway, back to the Washington Redskins. So, while I find it ironic and possibly contradictory based on what I just explained, I feel you need to forget about it. Our current Congressional House of Representatives really doesn’t give a fuck about what their grandfathers did in the past. Much like they’re not going to revisit the laws of the Jim Crowe South and re-name it, I don’t know, the fucking Tiger Woods Southern North East, they’re certainly not going to be concerned about something as trivial as football.
So, I think you should focus your efforts on the system, and not what the system affords. It would be kind of like having a discussion with your ex-wife who took all of your money in a divorce and bitching about the color of her socks. Who really gives a fuck? And ironically I’m pretty sure this is how Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins feels about this as well. If you take a look around, you’ll see a lot of really troubling effects of this system – and the names of football teams are probably really low on that list.