So,while we're talking hockey,congratulations to the Union Dutchmen,your 2014 NCAA men's hockey champions! Omg,racist nickname!!!!1111!!!!
Attended the semi-final doubleheader in Philly on Thursday. The Union-BC game was great from beginning to end. The Minny-North Dakota game had a great second half of the third period, with an unbelievable finish. I posted a comment elsewhere, that if both teams played the same way on Saturday, Union would win. Between games, I asked a guy wearing a Fighting Sioux jersey, "What will your team name be next year?" He quietly replied, "Fighting Sioux"! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota_Fighting_Sioux#Nickname
There's The Fighting Irish too. If they use the name of the tribe with the tribe's consent, that's fine. Apparently, that isn't the case here.... In danger of derailing the thread, the Redskins is like saying the Chinks, Gooks, ************s, Waps, etc.... Colbert was spot on.
Have I posted in this thread yet that, in H.S., I played football and wrestled against the Pekin Chinks...?
I've been hoping one of those bastards wallops Floyd Mayweather, but he's too scared to fight the one who will.
Not an insult. Now, were it the Fighting Micks, someone might object, even though there are many people with that nickname, some of them Irish. Isn't Sioux an exonym, anyway? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakota_people Waps? At one time, "Canuck" was an insult, in some places, "Yankee" still is. Are they now the Ducks?
except that's an expression of self-pride by an institution with a strong Irish-Catholic heritage (and likewise with Celtics and Vikings). It's a reference to their own identity. As far as I'm aware, nobody asked the Sioux if they wanted to be a mascot and reduced to a patronizing symbol of fierceness. And that's my issue with other Indian-themed nicknames and imagery (besides the obvious slur that is the Redskins). It's the hijacking of cultural imagery.
Florida State did exactly that with the Seminoles. They have full approval from the tribe. Here is another Native American's take. http://nativeappropriations.com/201...ce-fsu-and-the-seminole-tribe-of-florida.html
Yeah, I'm okay with that (or at least moreso than other more contentious cases). I think it's still tacky, but at least NCAA has gone with the right tactic - if you want to use Native-themed nicknames, at least get permission.
Actually founded by a French priest & named in his native tongue L’Université de Notre Dame du Lac, then became a famous football team under a Lutheran Norwegian-born player & later coach, Knute Rockne. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Knute_Rockne03.JPG
Sure, but this feels awfully lot like picking nit for the sake of nitpicking. The school has drawn both faculty and students from Catholics in East Coast cities and the nickname is (likely) a reference to the Irish core of the football team in the Rockne era. In any case, there is a connection between Notre Dame and Irish-American culture. The same can't be said for UND and the Sioux.
I wonder what the reaction would be if these Native American mascot schools would change their names to something like the "Conquering Anglos", thus insulting those who did wrong by the Native Americans. Being a mascot is an insult, right? I have trouble understanding why naming a college mascot after some aspect of a minority race/culture is an insult, but naming a building or street in the same way in an honor. Can somebody enlighten me. Is it the behaviour of the fans in imitating what they consider to be a aspects of that minority? What if the mascot was presented and treated in a "respectful" "non-caricature" manner? Would a theoretical "Geromino University" be an insult or an honor? (Geronimo was not his real name, but let us assume so for this endeavor.) But X State University Apaches is an insult, right? What about Geronimo University Apaches?
I have a sneaking suspicion that you're not exactly desperate to understand, and haven't tried super duper hard to engage the empathy part of your brain. Short answer: there's this thing called cultural context Long answer: I think apologists (for lack of a better word) of Native-themed nicknames and mascots mistakenly frame this as a matter of someone being "offended" (which, besides mistaking the issue, also implicitly places the blame on Natives for being the object of gaze). It's not so much a matter of offending as it is, simply, being a dick. When you co-opt someone else's culture and use it as a symbol of whatever for your organization, it's kind of a dick move. It's also a dick move when you, like you suggest, reference de facto genocide as an inspiration for a nickname. That's downright trolling. Native-themed nicknames aren't on their own a problem in a contextless vacuum, which is where you want your thought experiment to happen. Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of ignoring our collective cultural baggage. Supporters of these nicknames claim the names represent "honor" and "respect", which might be a sincere sentiment. But that ignores the fact that traditionally, characterizing Natives as "brave" "warriors" has been, at best, a patronizing pat on the back at noble unsophisticates who couldn't hang with modernity, and at worst, euphemism for "savage". And that doesn't get to the issue of how there's so little Indian representation in popular culture that it'd be awful nice if Indians weren't refused to simple adjectives.
It is. They already had the name and were trying to get permission from the tribe/nation so that the few who care enough to comment will "get off their backs". My guess is the price was fairly low- a scholarship or reduced tuition for anyone who could prove membership. You're probably right, and for that reason, I would have stopped typing right there. YMMV, and did, obviously.
If you were a native American, maybe you would not want to be portrayed as a dufus. Doesn't seem like a compliment to me.
I haven't been able to find it online, but I swear (with the caveat that I did sustain a concussion that season) that the wrestling singlet of the Pekin Chinks featured muscular coolie pulling a rickshaw.
As a Skins fan I wouldn't be upset if they changed it. I've also heard young Indians say they call each other "skins" so I'm not sure if this is more a whitey-feeling-guilty issue or a real one. On the paying of athletes issue. WNBA hottie Swin Cash was on tv talking about how "great" scholarships are according to the NCAA Greed-meisters. Then she pointed out how her's was 100% financed by a booster. So it cost UCONN exactly jack-squat. Not to mention these non-earning sports stars attract thousands of applicants to the university every year. Even an avg. school like UCONN has benefited greatly.
********! I'd forgotten that! We had to walk past it to get to our bench at the wrestling meet. It wasn't the "Chink" thing that struck us as weird, it was putting various sayings on the wall around his image. Thanks for the nightmares and flashbacks I'll be having tonight!
You always know it's not going to get better, when it starts like this. WTF? You appear to have no clue why these nicknames were chosen, or why they are supported. You also appear to be full of something, on this topic, but I won't suggest what it is. And may well be 100% accurate. Calling something "fact" does not make it so. Same as "Spartans", "Vikings", "Warriors", "Rebels", etc.? "Reduced"? Opponents of Native American athletic nicknames presuppose that they are presumptuous and demeaning. They are mistaken. But, feel free to carry on.
This should help Professor Willingham, if she sues: http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/21/us/unc-whistle-blower-resigns/ Perhaps her lawyer could take depositions from lots of UNC athletes, and ask them to read "their" term papers on video.
This stood out to me: In a brief filed in court Thursday, USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz reported, the NCAA indicated that it plans to demonstrate “hard evidence — data –that football and men’s basketball (student-athletes), do, in fact get an education, including statistical analyses showing that these (student-athletes) graduate and achieve success at equal or higher rates than other young people with similar backgrounds.” People who go to college will do better than people who don't go to college from the same neighborhood. There is nothing special about that, as anybody with any brain will know.