Quote
alyoshamucci
And it's not about it being offensive. It's about ignorance.
When I was a kid I thought the name was cool. When I learned it was basically a bounty I almost threw up.
It's like a team name that is something like the Atlanta Lynchers being a thing. It's not close. And it's not defensible.
The reason I am speaking up is that in our country we have erased the actual history. Mount Rushmore is shown as a giant edifice in elementary schools, when it's actually the ugly tiny end of a beautiful mountain that was a native heritage site dedicated to passed elders.
Thing is? I learned that LAST WEEK. It evaded me my whole life because our school system erased it.
Erasing history to comply with our entitled comfort is weak.
I'm not offended by the name. I'm offended by American willingness to erase the history of others and profit off of it while continuing the erasure indoctrination at every level of public schooling.
It makes us weak. We don't challenge our elders or question their behavior. I am not a fan of weakness, not a fan of lacking accountability, and not a fan of glorifying horrors, and in this case it was all 3.
Well put. You can't erase history but you can LEARN it, as you did with Rushmore. And REAL history when it comes to the word "redskin"--whether it offends a non First Nations person or not--is that whether we like it or not, it came to be regarded more and more as offensive.
I looked up "redskin" in 7 online dictionaries. I stopped at 7 because 7 is enough.
dictionary.com. "Redskin: a contemptuous term used to refer to a North American Indian."
The Free Dictionary "an old-fashioned informal name, now highly offensive, for a Native American"
Collins Dictionary. "(ˈredˌskɪn) NOUN slang, derogatory, often offensive, a Native American"
MacMillans. "a word used in the past to refer to a Native American, now regarded as very offensive"
Websters "A common appellation for a North American Indian; - so called from the color of the skin. It is now considered pejorative by persons of North American Indian heritage."
Mirriam-Websters Learner's Dictionary "informal + offensive : native american ◊ The word redskin is very offensive and should be avoided"
Oxford Dictionary: "a very offensive word for a Native American"
Times change. This little blurb says something about that. It's from 2013:
Quote
from [
law.marquette.edu]
the meanings of descriptive adjectives, especially those with racial or ethnic connotations, do change over time. In my childhood, spent in the rural South during the final years of the Jim Crow era, we were taught that African-Americans preferred to be called “colored” or “Negroes,” and that to refer to such a person as “black” to his or her face would be insulting.
...
while it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the meaning of “redskin” moved from innocuous to offensive, there is little reason to doubt that the general meaning of the term has changed
Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2020 07:52PM by zn.
