Deadskins wrote:riggofan wrote:"We're not trying to offend anyone with our racial slur of a name, so therefore its ok".
Can you please explain to me again why "Redskins" is a racial slur. And don't use your "walk up to an Indian" scenario, or "the dictionary says so" explantations.
What's the point? If you're not willing to accept the dictionary definition or the ruling of the USPTO, I don't really know why you would accept anything I have to say. Are you one of these guys who refuses to believe in the possibility of global warming too no matter how many scientists offer you proof?
Anyway, I'm not going to argue about the name itself. I think that horse has been beaten to death.
This was a pretty well written article in the Atlantic though if you care to read it objectively:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainmen ... ed/373198/When the decade opened, liberal-minded people referred to Negroes (or to “the Negro,” as LBJ liked to say), while an unreconstructed rear guard still talked about “coloreds.” By the decade’s end, pretty much everybody was using “blacks.” Over the following decades Orientals became Asians, queers became gays, and the new terms “Latino,” “Hispanic,” and “Chicano” were added to the vocabulary. And the old word “slur” acquired a new meaning to refer to a word that conveyed an ethnic or racial insult, one whose use was not just unkind, but as a social thought crime. Not even the vocal reactions against “political correctness” in later decades called the right of self-naming into serious question. Those on the cultural right may ridicule PC ideas about race and gender, but in their public discussions they’re as fastidious as anybody else about avoiding words that are regarded as offensive or simply outmoded.
There are exceptions to that pattern, but “redskin” isn’t among them. By the 1970s, the word was widely considered as a slur. All modern dictionaries label it as offensive or disparaging, just at they do the N-word—no journalist would begin a story, “Redskin astronaut John Herrington was honored last night…” Not all Indians object to the word, it’s true. In surveys, it’s offensive to 35 to 45 percent of Indians enrolled in tribes, but far fewer among the much larger—and rapidly growing—population who self-identify as Indians, many out of a spiritual affinity or a family legend about a Cherokee princess four generations back. Whatever the exact number, it offends enough people to put it off limits as a form of address. Any white person who uses the word injudiciously to a group of Indians can count on receiving a sufficient quota of angry stares.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/us- ... story.htmlThe U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has refused to register trademarks containing the word “Redskins” about a dozen times since 1992 on the grounds that the term may disparage Native Americans. Among the rejected: Redskins Fanatics, Redskin Pigskins and Washington Redskins Cheerleaders. The latest to be turned down was “Redskins Hog Rinds,” which was submitted on behalf of a Capitol Heights, Md., man. In a letter from the agency in December, an examining attorney wrote that it was denied because it contained “a derogatory slang term.”
I love the Redskins too, man. Its not the point.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You can't do epic **** with basic people." - DJax
"We're on the rise, man, whether you're on the train or not." - Josh Norman
