Washington Redskins are changing their name and logo

Now I know why, whenever there's a Red Skins game on, I find my blond-haired daughter right up against the TV with her hands on the screen, as she keeps turning to me and saying "They're here."


P.S. I don't have a daughter.

I like it - pretty unambiguous and safe I think

Negative!

Washington is offensive. I heard that guy owned slaves and stuff. Also, District of Columbia won't work either. Columbia reminds people of Columbus, and we all hate that guy, too.

Instead, let's just go with THE DISTRICT TEAM.

New logo below:



Also, they are allowed exactly one cheerleader:



May the odds be forever in their favor!

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Hang on a minute .... aren't all American Football teams meant to be a mix of both defensive and offensive????

Perhaps we'll all wake up in the shower next week and this will all have been a dream

(Though tbh - the 'all waking up in a shower together' bit sounds more like a nightmare to me )

They should just call themselves the Washington Native Americans

Offensive to European Football fans

Then we'd have to have this thread all over again in a couple years when that name is found offensive

If you did have a daughter you could name her Winter.

The Washington Washers!

No nut or bolt is complete without a washer!

People got to think of the rivalry between Washington and Dallas. So be p.c. and call them the Washington Indians. Cleveland's called the Indians. Dallas Cowboys and Washington Indians, they change their logo to a cooler looking Indian, that's a win-win

I'd name her Winter Soldier.

P.S. I actually don't like the whole story arc of bringing Bucky back to life and making him a Russian assassin with a bionic arm. I always liked the fact that he was the one comic book character that STAYED dead! "Bionic arm" how cliched can they get? Speaking of PC - Bucky's bionic arm helps diminish Misty Knight - a strong black female character - the first to have a bionic arm!

The nfl has 32 football teams but only one Football Team.

Wait, you mean there's a soccer team in NFL?

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I didn’t say football club.

I'm not sure I get all of that, must be a comic book reference?

BTW this is Winter Steele, maybe you remember this?

Yep, it’s a comic book reference. He's also been adapted to the movies. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I'm afraid I don't remember "Winter Steele"! (Looks pretty crazy!)


Bucky Barnes was Captain America's side-kick throughout WWII (in both the comic stories and their publication history), in the tradition of the most popular teen comic book sidekick: Robin the Boy Wonder!

In the 60's (after Marvel Comics brought Captain America back - saying he hadn't aged because he had been in suspended animation) they told a story how Bucky was killed while trying to disarm a bomb on a drone plane near the end of WWII.

There was a comic book trope of killing off characters JUST to bring them back again (as their return would generate revenue) - this trend grew (especially in the 90's) to the point where no character's death (threat of death, rumor of death or depicted certain death) could be taken seriously.

There was one character that stood out though - Bucky - he was one of the most famous characters killed off who remained dead.

But he soon rejoined the overflowing ranks of the resurrected - a new story was concocted that the explosion thought to have killed him took his arm. His body was recovered by Soviets, he too was put in suspended animation, given a bionic arm, and brainwashed to become a Russian assassin called the Winter Soldier.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (bringing the topic back to movies, but not to the Red Skins) incorporated this story and it was the plot for the 2nd Captain America movie: Winter Soldier (2014).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843866/

The Washington PinkSkins?

26 seconds to find out why
https://surprise.ly/v/?QGtraJnZLfc:0:26:0:100

I can relate. We'll just wrap this up now, then.

I'm not sure why. Even if you don't like the reclamation of the word, you are aware of the idea, and anyone aware of the idea understands that it signals a different intent. And that's all words are: signaling an idea or intent.

I find you generally thoughtful, which is why I'm harping on this: because I think it is a very uncharacteristic position. I don't think it holds water. It seems like a cheeky way to question the wisdom of reclaiming the word, but goes too far in pretending not to understand how context changes intent, and therefore logically changes reaction.

Yeah, obviously this is a miscommunication, but hopefully it's clear now.

For a free society to function, we need to be allowed to do things, but we also need to choose not to do most of them. If we did all the worst things that were legal, society would break down. Society, in other words, extends beyond law, and social pressure is crucial to freedom, even if it's possible for it to go too far. Even that is preferable to more laws, which is the alternative.

I see. To me, it's still not a "must" because it's not a must that they be satisfied. The "must" is from the perspective of the person being asked to change. It can be a "must" for the person demanding, in terms of their satisfaction, but if their satisfaction is not crucial to me, it won't be a "must" for me.

I am not against asking. I'm against using a simple majority to make the determination. If 49% of Native Americans are offended by it, that seems more than sufficient.

Yes and no. Must is legal, in a purely technical sense. My reading of it is therefore the more straightforward: following the law is not optional, pleasing or satisfying others is, therefore it's not a "must" if people "demand" in a way that only uses their disapproval as implicit threat. But I concede that it's possible for a society to be hostile to free speech (and freedom in general) with culture and censure alone.

Indeed, it's very tricky. My inclination is that all that stuff is indeed part of speech, and that while it will be messy (and sometimes even very bad), it beats the alternatives. I also have faith we'll "figure it out" eventually.

How hard was that.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

I am aware of word reclamation, but I do not agree with the idea. There are multiple reasons for this:

1) "Messenger" vs "the message" - the intent or the context can't be deciphered by the (physical) attributes of the speaker alone.

2) I hold the richness of the language in high value. "Banning" (that's what it basically is today) the words reduces the richness and expressiveness of the language. This is true for all words.

3) If the word is reclaimed due to an idea or intent it conveys outside the reclaiming group, the issue isn't about words anymore; it's about "banning" ideas and intents, in other words, thought-policing.

I don't disagree with the idea of being offended by words. I disagree with the logic and reason and morality behind it. A proper and non-problematic way to reclaim a word would be to take an originally derogatory term and just claim it as your own self-definition. Reclaiming becomes problematic the instant it tries to take words away from others.

I mostly agree. I'm not too sure about the extreme social pressure being favorable to more (well-defined) laws, though. To me, social pressure ends in "witchhunts" and ethnic/political cleansings while legislation at least has a chance to ensure some level of equality.

I, sort of, see but fail to grasp the logic. From your point of view, the "must" shouldn't be about how you feel about the demand but whether you have an option to refuse (which leads back to the ability to enforce the demand). The main difference, to me, is that I'm speaking of an idea while you're speaking of actualization of the idea.

I'm not sure if I share your optimism. At least I'm sure that a vast amount of blood will be spilled before we "figure it out" and the solution may not be the one either of us has in mind.

This has already changed the terms of the discussion, though. The issue is whether it's irrational to react any differently based on the attributes of the speaker, not whether you can determine their entire intent from that alone.

I'm happy to discuss these things, but they're ultimately beside the question we're considering.

The only thing at issue is whether it's reasonable for a black person to react differently to that slur from another black person than they would from a white person. That's the whole issue. Bringing all these other questions into that question suggests to me that you do not really think that distinction is unreasonable by itself, but feel obligated to disagree with it because of these much broader disagreements you're expressing now. You seem to disagree with the culture and decisions that led to the situation where someone will react differently to those words, but I'm not sure pretending there should be no difference is a reasonable way to express that.

I'm not sure it has much more chance of equality, and the downside is much more serious and tangible than even extreme levels of societal disapproval, but that's probably outside any useful scope of this conversation.

Right, I'm using "must" in a straightforward sense. Every "must" needs an "unless" to be fully understood, I think. Technically there is no such thing as a "must" since you can refuse to do something even with threatened by death, but we understand that situation to be a "must" in any meaningful sense.

"You must...or else you go to jail" is obviously on another level from "You must...or you'll lose this sponsor and people will yell at you on Twitter."

Very plausible, yes.