Wednesday, August 14, 2013



The Left Vs. the Redskins

Dennis Prager

The online magazine Slate announced last week that it will never again refer to the Washington's National Football League team, the Redskins, by its name.

The name, according to Slate, offends American Indians, and therefore should be dropped. And until such time, Slate will never mention it. It will become, in effect, the R-word.

The article, to its credit, acknowledged that the term "redskins" was not coined as a racist epithet:

"The word redskin has a relatively innocent history. As Smithsonian linguist Ives Goddard has shown, European settlers in the 18th century seem to have adopted the term from Native Americans, who used 'red skin' to describe themselves, and it was generally a descriptor, not an insult."

Argument Four is the key argument, offered by the Atlantic, in its support of Slate:

Response: "Whether people 'should' be offended by it or not doesn't matter; the fact that some people ARE  offended by it does."

This is classic modern liberalism. It is why I have dubbed our age "The Age of Feelings."

Teaching people to take offense is one of the left's black arts. Outside of sex and drugs, the left is pretty much joyless and it kills joy constantly. The war on the "Redskins" name is just the latest example.

Second, it is the left that specializes in offending: labeling the Tea Party racist, public cursing, displaying crucifixes in urine, and regularly calling Republicans evil (Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column last month, wrote that the Republican mindset "takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering on the already miserable." For such people to find the name "Redskins" offensive is a hoot.

Source


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Normally, i would simply attribute this to the insidious virus known as political correctness. While it certainly is that, it is more. It is an old, and quite efficient tactic used by the Left to keep it's enemies always on the defensive. Sadly, and yet again, those on the Right seem to lack the vision, and/or the strength, to deal with it.

Brian from Virginia said...

Two things:

1) the name 'Redskins' for the football team was chosen by the coach at time, who was an American Indian.

2) As a far of the Washington Redskins, if they ever bow to pressure and change the name, that will be the day I am no longer a fan.

Use the Name, Luke said...

Furthermore, professional football team names are generally chosen for their positive attributes, therefore implying that the team possesses those same attributes. Personally, I consider it an insult to American Indians to view the name "Redskins" as a pejorative rather than the tribute to their strength of character and physical prowess it was intended to be.

Anonymous said...

Then, there's the sad fact that being "offended" today has become a major, and very profitable, industry. ($$$)

President Not Sure said...

I played football for the Cardinal Gibbons Redskins in HS. I just saw that they are now the Cardinal Gibbons Chiefs. Damn sellouts.

Anonymous said...

I guess it would be preferable to relegate natives to the dust bin of history books, only mentioned in either hushed tones or in passing.. “Oh, yeah.. native Americans still exist”. Also, historical discussion of what native Americans were actually like would be forbidden because the truth isn’t really PC .. (cough.. king phillip.. cough)

Anonymous said...

There are now no "pure bloods" of any so-called specific race.

northierthanthou said...

damned convenient that Prager doesn't acknowledge the native activists. It's just 'the left,' and as long as he is criticizing leftists no-one has to acknowledge his racism.