The image of a mascot is cause for someone to get their panties all in a twist?
For somebody so sure they're a voice of reason and common sense, you sure are awfully willing to completely dismiss the context of history. It's unclear to me which part of common sense and reason insists that mascots consisting of racist iconography somehow exist in a vacuum. Which part of common sense involves completely dismissing historical context?
There were 10 million Native Americans living in North America when European settlers arrived. By 1900, there were 300,000. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the iconography in the Indian's logo might have been just been the tip of the ol' racism iceberg, in this case.
So the fact that it's just a mascot is the very reason there's no rational argument in favor of keeping it. Because mascots don't matter, but genocides do.
By the way, I'm super excited for all of that common sense you keep touting to start showing itself in your posts. Should we be expecting it soon?
Anyone with the discipline and interest to read state/federal legislation, legislative debate records at both levels, court proceedings and decisions, contracts with private firms and newspaper accounts of the time will understand exactly what happened in the 1830s with the Eastern indigenous tribal nations in the South.
Choctaw, Creek, Seminole and Cherokee nations were forced into treaties which were often manipulated and ignored. Attempts at assimilation were blocked by court decisions. Rights which were to accrue to individual members of these nations were manipulated and money was stolen. Many were swindled. The relocation costs in today's dollars would've cost roughly $1 trillion. Even so, the moves were bungled with people exposed to disease and hunger.
The effort to legally take these lands was also related to the business interests of the slave labor model and social hierarchy. This was and is not a southern states issue alone. Financial interests in New York and manufacturers in New England also benefitted. Further, the northern states didn't have a superior moral position because of the way most indigenous nations were treated earlier in history.
It is our history. We don't often own it, but if we chose to do so and did more to honestly address the lasting impact of these policies/actions we would have a more just and more perfect union.
I disagree with none of that. But I'm still trying to figure out how a baseball team in northern Ohio nicknamed the Indians is so terrible. Seems like "what can I be offended by today".
Genocide. It's the genocide that adds offense.
Again, use some of the common sense you keep claiming you're a fan of. A group of people were killed en masse and treated terribly for hundreds of years.
And now that same group of saying "maybe the baseball/football teams with a history of racist logos/names could be renamed?" and you're complaining that they're too sensitive.
So, to summarize:
There's you, who is upset a baseball team name is changing.
And there's a group of people who underwent a century long genocide saying they don't want a very public, racist reminder of that history.
And you think they're just out looking for something to get offended by? You acknowledge the stakes don't matter, and are still upset.
That's the very definition of looking for a reason to be offended. The hypocrisy is hilarious.
First of all I'm not even remotely upset that a baseball team name is changing. I just think the entire "offended" thing is stupid.
Yeah dude, I'm aware of your stance. You've posted it 6 times. I'm pointing out why and how your stance is far stupider that Native American groups being offended by the name Indians.
And you know that. Which is why you're so insistent you don't care about this at all, even though you came into this thread -- a thread that hadn't had a post in a month -- to say this:
This world has lost its collective mind. Offended by a team name? Give me a break.
And now, because you know you can't actually defend your stance here on logical grounds, you're deflecting by insisting you don't care. Because if you cared, you'd have to justify your opinion. And clearly you can't actually do that. Because it's a stupid opinion.
So yeah, man. I get it. You don't really care that the world's "lost it's collective mind", and it doesn't upset you. You just came here to dredge up this dormant thread and post about it a whole bunch because you don't care about it at all.
The reality is that you think this is an example of PC Culture run amok, and you don't like PC Culture, so you came into this thread to try and stir sh*t up, like you've been doing on this site for the last few weeks. But pretty much immediately in you realized you couldn't actually win this argument or justify your purely emotional response to this whole thing. You were the very first person to here to care about this. You started this conversation. So that you're now insisting you don't care is just a testament to how stupid your opinion here is.
If you're gonna try and start an argument about PC culture run amok or whatever, at least pick an example of PC culture running amok. There are plenty of them. I know why you feel the way you do on the subject. This just isn't an example of that. The choice the Indians and Redskins made is perfectly reasonable and long overdue. The only person here "looking for a reason to be offended" is you.