The name “Redskins†isn’t racist, and changing the name would do more harm than good. Many people have a notion in their heads that the moniker of the Washington, DC football team is at the very least offensive, and some go as far to say that it’s a slur. While each individual decides what is and isn’t offensive to them personally, the Redskins as a name has gotten an unfairly bad rap, based largely on a mountain of misinformation. Allow me to explain. Who Decides What’s Offensive? As a result of a recent AP poll where 4 out of 5 Americans do NOT find the name Redskins offensive, this horse-beaten issue has again reared its ugly head, in spite of common sense and independent thinking. There is no question that this topic is controversial, and many highly educated people have strong, seemingly well-thought out opinions on the matter. In other words, the elite academia has decided what we all should think. They are the ones in charge of dictionary definitions; they think they get decide for us what is derogatory and what isn’t. How they arrive at those decisions isn’t advertised. We just have to trust that they don’t have an agenda and that they speak for the majority of Americans. But when 79% of Americans disagree on a definition, is it really the definition? Who gets to decide what a word means? The truth is, all words are made up, and they become words by people in society using them. When the first comprehensive catalog of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, was first published in the late 1800’s–not very long ago by historical standards–it was constructed like this: past literary examples of words were cobbled together, highlighting several different uses of the word over the course of time, and a consensus was reached. The various meanings of any given word were based on how the authors used it.* In short, it was the masses who defined all English words. At least that how it was at first. Now, when a new word is submitted to any dictionary, the editors of that dictionary decide its meaning. So when you go online and look up “redskin†in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, here’s what you’ll see: But if the masses decide what a word means, and 79% of Americans say the words is not offensive, why would the folks at Merriam-Webster claim it is USUALLY offensive? Now at this point, you may think, “Ok, just because this poll came out doesn’t mean that the word ‘redskin’ isn’t offensiveâ€. Fair enough. In fact, long time name-change advocate Suzan Shown Harjo recently put it this way: “This is a really good example of why you never put racism up to a popular vote, because racism will win every time,†she said. “It’s not up to the offending class to say what offends the offended.†Great point, so let’s ask Native Americans. 91% of Native Americans Can’t Be Wrong In 2004, the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey asked 65,047 people, of which 786 identified themselves as Native Americans, if they found the name “Redskins†offensive, specifically in the context of the Washington Redskins football team. And guess what: 91% of those identified as Native Americans either liked the name or did not find it offensive. Hmmm, 91% – even more than the general public, where racism wins every time, according to Ms. Harjo (and we’ll cut her some slack and won’t talk about how her insinuation that we’re all a bunch of racists is really very offensive). There are some folks who discover the results of this poll, and it makes them very uncomfortable, because it flies in the face of what they WANT to believe. They usually claim there must be something wrong with the way the poll was conducted. Hate to break it to you, but there wasn’t, other than perhaps the survey would have benefited from a larger sample size of Native Americans. The University of Pennsylvania is considered to be on par with Ivy League schools academically, so the academic elites can’t claim incompetence. Furthermore, the National Annenberg Election Survey is the LARGEST public opinion survey conducted during presidential elections, and their methods are conducted with the highest standards, with a +/- 2% error rate. Washington Post columnist Mike Wise did his best to refute this poll, citing a comment from former New York Times columnist Adam Clymer, who was in charge of the Annenberg survey: What if you had a dinner party and you invited 10 people. And by the end of the night it’s pretty clear that nine of them have had a tremendous time and really enjoyed the food and company. But one of them you managed to completely insult and demean, to the point where people around them noticed and it was uncomfortable. So, ask yourself: Were you a social success that night? Wise called this “perhaps the best reason of all for changing the nameâ€. I call it comparing apples to oranges. This isn’t a dinner party, not even close; it’s totally inaccurate analogy. The aforementioned polls cover a wide swath of both the American public at large and also the Native American population – not ten imaginary people. In any case, it’s a silly argument. Sure, if you’re a decent human being, you wouldn’t want to go out of your way to offend somebody at a small social gathering, but what if this somebody gets offended by every little thing you say? Must 80% or 90% of society alter what they say and do, all because 10% or 20% say, “I don’t like what you think?†You can read the rest of the article by clicking here
Sooooo, did they only ask native Americans who are Redskins fans? This article is laughable, at best.
