The name REDSKINS is NOT offensive

[Cliff Krainik]

images.andale.com/f2/116/104/7566189/1097490763679_DISHONOR.jpg [/img]

[Gene]

Nice label. Every time a white person sticks up for something that they believe in, they are labeled a racist, I find this particular piece of satire to be extremely offensive to not only my family, who by the way settled Illinois, they also settled in Virginia before it was called America, as they held the title of colonist.

Gene Stevens
Black Hawk War Society

[Cliff Krainik]

GENE WROTE -

"Every time a white person sticks up for something that they believe in ..." WHICH IS?

GENE CONTINUED -

"my family, who by the way settled Illinois, they also settled in Virginia before it was called America, as they held the title of colonist" YOUR POINT IS?

The NATIVE PEOPLE WELCOMED YOUR KIN - late comers ...

Cliff

[Gene]

My point is YOU FAIL TO RESPECT MY POINT OF VIEW AND ARE A VERY NARROW MINDED PERSON!

The point of mentioning my ancetry is to acknowledge their hardships and that they suffered. A history which is currently under attack by modern revisionist history, why should I NOT SIDE with my blood?

Gene

[Cliff Krainik]

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Sorry - no time for bigotry.


Cliff Krainik - aka Narrow Minded

[Gene]

The poltical cartoon displayed here is a LABEL, I guess that makes the artist a racist with a narrow mind?

What ya think Cliff?
Gene

[Cliff Krainik]

Gene,

You recently wrote -

"My point is YOU FAIL TO RESPECT MY POINT OF VIEW"

Can't honestly say if I respect your POINT OF VIEW or not - haven't heard it yet. Would you please tell the world what exactly is YOUR POINT OF VIEW regarding the satirical illustration I posted depicting the overt racism as it relates to the inappropriate and offensive naming of the Washington, D.C. football team? That is the sole issue - not the suffering and achievements of your ancestors, yata, yata ...

In another posting you stated -

"The poltical cartoon displayed here is a LABEL, I guess that makes the artist a racist with a narrow mind? "

Actually the illustration is social satire exposing those folks who refer to Native Americans in a pejorative manner as racists.

"What ya think Cliff?"

I think I agree with Ms. Rhonda Cervantes January 31, 2002 letter to Marc Fisher, writer for the Washington Post, in which she states -


"The controversy around this name [REDSKINS] is well known. Whatever the origin, it seems irrelevant. It is patently offensive to a large number of people—period. Therefore, the name should be changed, regardless of numbers, statistics, etc. For example, we would not consider naming a team, "The New York Kikes" regardless of how many people liked the name or the origin of the term "kike." Any discussion other than how fast the name should be dropped would be an outrage. Imagine someone asking the Jewish people to prove the offensiveness and to do the research to justify their offense! Why are Native people not afforded such consideration? Perhaps that is the more relevant question."

Gene, I don't question for a moment the sufferings and contributions of your ancestors. You should be justly proud of them and for the fact that their efforts have enabled you to live in a free society where no one, regardless of their religion or race, should be denigrated, trivialized or discriminated against.

See ya along the Black Hawk Trail.

Cliff - N.M.

[Robert Braun]

A Linguist's Alternative History of 'Redskin'
Term Did Not Begin as Insult, Smithsonian Scholar Says; Activist Not So Sure

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 3, 2005; Page A03

For many Americans, both Indian and otherwise, the term "redskin" is a grotesque pejorative, a word that for centuries has been used to disparage and humiliate an entire people, but an exhaustive new study released today makes the case that it did not begin as an insult.

Smithsonian Institution senior linguist Ives Goddard spent seven months researching its history and concluded that "redskin" was first used by Native Americans in the 18th century to distinguish themselves from the white "other" encroaching on their lands and culture.

When it first appeared as an English expression in the early 1800s, "it came in the most respectful context and at the highest level," Goddard said in an interview. "These are white people and Indians talking together, with the white people trying to ingratiate themselves."

It was not until July 22, 1815, that "red skin" first appeared in print, he found -- in a news story in the Missouri Gazette on talks between Midwestern Indian tribes and envoys sent by President James Madison to negotiate treaties after the War of 1812.
The envoys had rebuked the tribes for their reluctance to yield territory claimed by the United States, but the Gazette report suggested that Meskwaki chief Black Thunder was unimpressed: "Restrain your feelings and hear calmly what I say," he told the envoys. "I have never injured you, and innocence can feel no fear. I turn to all red skins and white skins, and challenge an accusation against me."

Goddard's view, however, does not impress Cheyenne-Muscogee writer Suzan Shown Harjo, lead plaintiff for Native American activists who, for the past 13 years, have sought to cancel trademarks covering the name and logo of the Washington Redskins.

"I'm very familiar with white men who uphold the judicious speech of white men," Harjo said in a telephone interview. "Europeans were not using high-minded language. [To them] we were only human when it came to territory, land cessions and whose side you were on."

Goddard, aware of the lawsuit and Harjo's arguments, said that "you could believe everything in my article" and still oppose current public usage of "redskin."
Evidence cited by Harjo and others has pointed to a much harsher origin for "redskin," but Goddard, a linguist who studies the Algonquian language of northeastern North America, casts doubt on much of it. "While people seem to be happier with the agonistic interpretation of past events," he said, "when you get on the ground, the real story is much more complicated and much more interesting."

Reporting his findings in the European Review of Native American Studies, Goddard noted that the first appearance of the word was long thought to have occurred in a 1699 letter written by "Samuel Smith," quoted in a 1900 memoir by his descendant, Helen Evertson Smith, titled "Colonial Days & Ways."

"My father ever declardt there would not be so much to feare iff ye Red Skins was treated with suche mixture of Justice & Authority as they cld understand," the purported letter said. Another part of the letter is quoted in the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary as the etymological origin of "redskin."

When Goddard studied the letter, however, he concluded it was a fake: "The language was Hollywood. . . . It didn't look like the way people really wrote."

And it wasn't. In Evertson Smith's papers at the New-York Historical Society, Goddard found a first draft in her handwriting: "My father ever declared there would not be so much to fear if the Indians were treated with such mixture of Justice and authority as they could comprehend," the draft said. "Samuel Smith's" supposed letter, Goddard concluded, was "a work of fiction."

In fact, the earliest usages of "redskin" that Goddard tracked down were in statements made in 1769 by Illinois tribal chiefs involved in delicate negotiations with the British to switch loyalties away from the French.

"I shall be pleased to have you come to speak to me yourself," said one statement attributed to a chief named Mosquito. "And if any redskins do you harm, I shall be able to look out for you even at the peril of my life." The French used the phrase " peaux Rouges " -- literally "red skins" -- to translate the chief's words.

By this time the original colonial designations of "Christian" and "Indian" were giving way to "white," "red" and, with the increase in slave traffic, "black": "Color didn't originate with Indian-white relations but with slavery," said University of Connecticut historian Nancy Shoemaker. "It is slavery that makes color seem to be a way to organize people."

Like Goddard, Shoemaker said that by the end of the 18th century, Native Americans were using "red" to describe themselves and to assert their pride of being North America's original inhabitants.

And what had begun 100 years earlier as a reasonably amicable trading exchange, Shoemaker said, during the 1700s evolved into an increasingly tension-filled relationship, as rival European countries intrigued for Indian loyalties and Indians attempted to ward off waves of encroaching settlers.

To be continued...

[Robert Braun]

Coninued from previous post...

Harjo argues that pejorative use of "redskin" grew from the practice of offering bounties to anyone who killed Indians. Bounty hunters "needed proof of kill, but they had a storage problem," she said. "Instead of a body, they accepted the 'redskin' or the genitalia, or scalps."

But while such bounty proclamations were issued as early as the mid-18th century, Harjo acknowledged that she has not found an early instance of "redskin" in such a context.

Goddard, who calls Harjo's argument "an unfounded claim," said the first known public use of "redskin" in English occurred on Aug. 22, 1812, in Washington at a meeting between Madison and a group of visiting Indian chiefs.

Madison, worried about possible alliances between Indian tribes and the enemy British, delivered a long, stylized plea liberally sprinkled with the expressions "red people," "red tribes" and "my red children."

In response, Little Osage chief Sans Oreilles (No Ears) pledged loyalty despite provocations against his tribe and noted that "I know the manners of the whites and of the red skins." Then Sioux chief French Crow, making much the same argument, said: "I am a red-skin, but what I say is the truth, and notwithstanding I came a long way, I am content, but wish to return from there."

Records of these exchanges, translated by Indian language interpreters into French and English and transcribed immediately, are included in an installment of the Madison papers published last year.

Goddard acknowledged it is impossible to know whether the chiefs said "redskin" in their own languages, but interpreters in many contexts and with many tribes in this time period treated the word as an expression that only Indians used. The same is true of "white-skin."

Three years after the Washington encounter, Black Thunder spoke at Portage des Sioux, and his use of "redskin" made its way into print, as did the words of other chieftains. Once in popular culture, the expression began to lose its ceremonial context -- even as it acquired the connotations that Native Americans have come to loathe.

An 1871 novel spoke of "redskinned devils." The Rocky Mountain News in 1890 described a war on the whites by "every greasy redskin." The Denver Daily News the same year reported a rebellion by "the most treacherous red skins."

Daniel Snyder, who owns the Washington NFL franchise, has said the team name will never be changed because "what it means is tradition, what it means is competitiveness, what it means is honor." He said, "It is not meant to be derogatory."

Papers submitted in the case against the football team documented humiliating movie references by Hollywood icons Eddie Cantor, Bob Hope, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and others. In "Northwest Passage," Spencer Tracy, as a colonial explorer who hates Indians, importunes a subordinate to "Get a redskin for me, won't you?"

The final message, Shoemaker suggested, is that "even if the Indians were the first to use it, the origin has no relationship to later use. What happened at the beginning doesn't justify it today."