Those Offensive Redskins

Is "Red" the new "Black"?

I don't really understand the concept of offensive I guess. Many things offend me, but I do not expect others to change their words or behavior because I do not like something. "Name calling" is a childish thing, to be ignored by adults. It seems that adults are defining "name calling" as offensive where no offense is intended. To quote Alfred Korzybski in his book, Science and Sanity, "The word is not the thing."

Perhaps we are so frightened and disgusted by real problems we are facing: poverty, homelessness, three war-mongering presidents in a row, the economy, unemployment, misogynistic leaders (In the military, and in Government), child abuse, religious wars (Home and Abroad), and a slew of other problems more important than personal offense.

Let me point out that racism is in the eyes of the beholder. Thank about that. The team owners, the players, the fans, the general public do not see the Redskins name as a racist term. It is the minority of people who feign offense who are the racists.

To illustrate the ridiculousness of this issue, imagine a group of people demanding Cracker Barrel change their name. Imagine having to change the names of Oklahoma and Idaho (As opposed to Dakota). The word "woman" was at one time pejorative. The word "sucks" was, in the not to distant past, an obscenity when used as it is commonly used today without a hint of a blush by the most prim and proper of us.

Language, as most other aspects of culture, changes. Good words become bad, bad words become good. Do we change names if ours goes out of fashion? Of course not. I can think of a number of personal names I would be embarrassed to have, first and last. Some are spelled differently from their less than proper cousins, but the pronunciation is the same.

To sum up this ridiculous issue, even more ridiculous that a number of sage senators in our Congress saw fit to address the word "Redskins" over and above addressing all the other national problems we are having, get a life.

Be offended, if you insist, but handle your feelings of offense as an adult. Don't go to the Redskins games; ignore stories about The Redskins; write personal letters to the Redskins owners; above all, behave rationally by not making a federal mountain out of a commercial molehill.