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To echo the point raised much earlier in this thread, it is indeed a testament to the neglected voice of American Indians that a team is still allowed to call themselves the "Washington Redskins." Indian people don't have strong political lobbies, powerful entertainment celebrities to draw awareness to their culture and/or prominent, mainstream cultural institutions to complain about such things like other minorities have.
People are still complaining about the Redskins' name to this day, but the distinction is that no one in the mainstream really pays attention to them. I see about 1 article every 3 years on CNN about this issue, but although some college and high school teams have changed their names because the former names were racist Indian stereotypes, the Redskins controversy still fails to generate enough heat and attention to make the establishment take action. When I bring this up to friends and relatives I'm for the most part told "Awww, that's too PC, relax, it's just a name."
Yet when I point out: Would you be allowed to call a professional football team the "Brooklyn Brownskins", the "New York Spics", the "New Jersey Darkies" or the "San Francisco Yellowskins"? No. after I make this point, or when I connect the grinning Indian caricature on the Cleveland Indians hat to the grinning thick-lipped buck-toothed "Black Sambo" caricature, everyone pretty much starts to agree with me and says "Wow, I never thought about it that way, you're right, that IS racist!" That pretty much sums it up to me.
Incidentally, the Cleveland Indians were named to honor a Penobscott Indian who was the first very successful major league Native American player. So that one is a grey area - sure, the team was named in honor of the first Indian player in the major leagues, but the team's identity is now about the racist "Tomahawk chop" (by the way, going up to an Indian person and doing the 'whoop whoop' thing with hand-to-mouth or saying "How!" is tantamount to calling a black person "Nigger" or saying "Yes, sir, mass'a" to a black person) and the grinning Indian caricature, fans wear feathers & war paint to games, etc.
Indian headdresses, used for sacred ceremonial or tribe leaders, are also often lampooned in this fashion. One friend of mine saw a picture of a monkey with an Indian headdress on, and photoshopped a version of the monkey wearing the Pope's hat. The first didn't offend, the second did, for the most part. Why?
Or the somewhat well known "Red Man" chewing tobacco, with a picture of an Indian on the front. My friend also whipped up a photoshopped version of the "Black Man" tobacco with a picture of a black person on the front. The first is accepted in society, the second would never in a million years be accepted. Why?
The whole issue of the word "Squaw" is often debated in Indian circles, and isn't entirely agreed upon among the American Indian community itself. Squaw might mean "twat", "clit", "vagina" or "pussy" to many, but to some other Indian people it basically means "female" in the less-vulgar sense. Did the word originally mean "woman/female" but then became more associated with the more vulgar/sexual connotation through Indian slang and a bunch of dirty old Indian men through the generations? So this one is debated among the Indian community to this day.
>> American spirit cigarettes (imagine if they where Black Sambo Cigars)
American Spirit is probably the least offensive of all these - the name simply is "American Spirit", not "Red Indian Cigarettes", so the black sambo thing really isn't analagous here. "American Spirit" actually has a tone of pride and nice cultural feel to it, I think. Sure, there's a picture of an Indian in ceremonial gear on it - that's probably the most iffy part of it. But the question becomes is it bad to EVER show an Indian in ceremonial gear on a product? Probably, since we don't see Aunt Jemima on her syrup anymore - do we? (I think they re-did Aunt J's look and clothes a few years back to make her look less Civil War-slave) But we do see Uncle Ben on rice, I think. But I think American Spirit is actually made by Indian companies, if memory serves.
Is Uncle Ben necessarily bad? I don't know. That's a grey area. What's necessarily wrong with a similiar, paternal, friendly looking, white-haired black man? Or is the problem that we don't really see a human individual face on most food products? Then again, what about Jimmy Dean sausages, which show smiling white guy Jimmy Dean? If you can show a white guy on food products, why not a black guy if it's not a racist portrayal?
Also, let me second the notion that while it may be intellectually interesting to examine the term "PC", the real important thing in considering whether something is racist or prejudiced is not how it conforms to someone technical definition of PC (and there seem to be many different and even contradictory definitions of PC), but whether it is common-sense racist/offensively stereotypical or not.
We can also consider other stereotypes that may be non-offensive. For example, I don't think THE SOPRANOS is offensive. It's not saying all Italians are mafiosos. It's a show about the mafia. Just because a writer puts a character in his play who's black and a criminal, for example, doesn't mean the writer is saying all blacks are criminals. It depends on whether the character is a cliche or a well-drawn, human character, the quality and integrity of the overall story, etc.
Consider the character of Speedy Gonzalez. Funny? I would say hell yes. Offensive and stereotypical? Or just good fun, poking fun at stereotypes? |
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