Hey Let's All Change The Washington Redskins' Name Because No One At All Is Remotely Offended By It But We Wish To Show How Concerned We Are That Someone Might Be

Finally, some reasonableness on this non-issue. Read the whole thing.

But he overlooks another "ethnic slur" football team name: The Minnesota Vikings.

Yessss, the Vikings were an ethnic group. Look it up. "Viking" is not just a job description. It is specifically the name given to the acts of raiding, pillage, theft, murder, and rape carried out by seaborne pirates of Scandanavia.

You know, the Norsemen, as mentioned in the old English prayer, "God spare us from the fury of the Northmen." Yes they changed a consonant sound. They were so afraid of the Norsemen they couldn't even bring themselves to say "Norsemen."

People actually prayed in church for God's assistance against the fury of an ethnic group bent on farflung slaughter of men and violation of women.

And yet no one ever objects to this. Why not? Isn't it demeaning to those of Scandinavian descent? Isn't there actually a group of virulent racists who thinks it's "Still Cool" to tell Scandi jokes?

But of course the reason for the non-objection is simple on one level, and requires some digging on two others. The simple reason for the lack of offense is this: Everyone understands no offense is intended. The Vikings are simply taken as a human symbol of fury and ferocity, to go along with all the animal names associated with fury and ferocity. Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh my.

Naming a team for the Vikings is not calling attention to the bad parts of Vikingry (rape, being the most obvious; and the Buccaneers are likewise not suggesting they are brutal maritime rapists, either). It is intended to suggest the good parts of Vikingry, which is to say, being such a badass that people actually change their prayers in order to plead to God for his help in sparing them of your predations.

And so it is with the Redskins. The Redskins are not named the Redskins to suggest any of the negative stereotypes associated with American Indians. No one says "Wow now that's some real Redskins football, by which I mean overrepresented in the casino and high skyscraper-construction trades." No one says that; no one thinks that.

I don't even think that, and I'm a racist.

No, what they're thinking, obviously, is about a Redskin scout on a lean horse with a spear and a rifle and maybe some counting-coup feathers from opponents he's slain, looking all bad-ass and showing off his six-pack abs and maybe scalping someone for littering.

Not just pro-environment, yo, but pro-environment with a tomahawk.

No one names teams after things that are silly or weak or infirm. You do not have teams named, for example, the Cleveland Peacocks. There is no team named the Kansas City Panda Bears. No one has started a franchise called the New York Fine Arts Majors.

No, it's always named after something that denotes the Achillean ideal of masculinity, suggesting fury, fierceness, pride, speed, power, and strength.

Everyone knows this. Literally everyone knows this.

So why do I even have to type these words out? Why is anyone compelled to explain to the Silly Left what is perfectly obvious, even to them?

I think there are two reasons.

First of all, the left is racist. Sometimes really racist, other times so overprotective of minorities they treat them with childish condescension.

Let me illustrate this with an anecdote. Years ago I was walking with a girlfriend and we passed a precinct police house in NYC. I thought I might want to interview people in there for something, so I asked the duty officer (or whatever) who I should talk to about seeing about a tour. He said the captain was out on the sidewalk, having a cigarette.

I looked out the door. On the sidewalk was a white guy with a cigarette talking with a black guy with a cigarette. Both plainclothes, both about the same age.

"White guy or black guy?" I asked.

"Black guy," he said.

Well, the black captain basically told me "No" (or more like, "You have to clear it with three levels of bureaucracy at the central office so go away and stop wasting my time you punk.")

But as I was leaving, my then-girlfriend said,

"Wow, you just said 'white guy or black guy.' That was so cool. Like it didn't even matter."

What she was saying was, basically, "Wow, those of your low circumstance just don't even care about the declassé things you say. You just put them out there, without a care in the world. I admire your Freedom. You're rather like circus folk, or Gypsies with their wild eyes and daggers tied with rare silks."

Well look: There was no plain way to differentiate them apart from race, now was there? How should I have differentiated them? "You mean the guy who's five foot eleven inches and a half, or the guy who's five foot eleven inches even?"

The only person who thought this was some kind of Walk on the Wild Side breach of etiquette was my liberal girlfriend.

Now I don't think she was racist per se, but she was possessed of a strange thought that is akin to racism: To even notice someone's race, even in a neutral or appropriate circumstance, bordered on insult.

Which leads to the next odd conclusion: To call a black man "black" is itself an insult.

Which leads to the actual racist proposition: The very condition of being black is somewhat shameful and therefore to make note of it is to demean those afflicted.

Do I think she thought those things? No, absolutely not; she wasn't racist. She had a good heart. But she had been conditioned by the left to apparently accept these dubious propositions without thinking about them too much.

So this is the left's problem with "Redskins:" They think to even notice that there are people with reddish skin (like Elizabeth Warren) is itself insulting, because the condition of being slightly more redly skinned than the next man is sort of debilitating condition we ought to pretend doesn't exist, like when we call crippled people "Differently Abled."

Well, again, even in my most racist moments I don't really conceive that when I say "Washington Redskins" I'm actually getting in a dig on Native Americans.

I don't really see "Red Skin" as a bad thing. I think it's sort of attractive. So I sort of need to know: Who out there, exactly, are the Bad Apples thinking all sorts of bad things when they hear someone might have red skin?

I guess some people are apparently so certain that mere differences in race are somehow badges of inferiority or infirmity that they get uncomfortable to even hear them mentioned.

The other reason is this: Leftists in general are very feminized and do not understand that suggesting that someone might be reminiscent of the male ideal of Achilles is a tribute; rather, being thoroughly feminized, they think it's insulting.

So they don't get how 90% of males react to the idea (the idea, mind you) of being a Viking, or a Buccaneer, or a Raider, or a Fighting Irishman, or a Redskin.

90% of males think "That's awesome. I wish I had a broadsword."

Look, we all know we can't just be Conan the Barbarian. We know that's a fantasy.

But we all can't be Bengals either and yet we cheer on teams on who wear black and orange, don't we?

Feminized leftists think, "How retrograde, primitive, uncultured, and savage. Why, you're insulting Indians to suggest they are like people Other Than Us. It's insulting to say that 'Redskins' are not the leftist ideal of vague lumps of post-humanity, but are rather human beings who still have some heat in their blood and sting in their piss."

All I can say to this is: Who did this to you? How did you become this neutered and denatured?

And how did you start conceiving that your hollow-chested, pencil-necked idea of the masculine ideal was universally held?

Must we all aspire to your soft, gray puddle of an ideal?

This is so obvious. I feel stupid even having to explain things which are So. Damnably. Obvious.

You would have to be stupid not to understand this, which is why MSNBC, Slate, and the Washington Post have stepped up to the plate to lean into the stupid.

posted by Ace at 03:37 PM

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