Washington Redskins will NEVER change name

[Thondalar]

... but it makes me wonder why you are so reluctant to stop using a single racial slur to describe a single sports team. It seems to me like having physically made a difference by affecting real peoples' daily loves would make it that much easier for you to make such a tiny concession.

The fact that you aren't a Redskins fan makes the concession tiny to you.

I would argue changing the team name would be just as offensive to the hundreds of thousands(millions?) of fans as not changing it is to the (hundreds?)tens of thousands of Native Americans.

You will easily scoff at this idea, because only your own perception of things matters to you.

[Thondalar]

Thond,
The point I'm trying to make, is that they said they weren't stereotyping. Which they are. Which the definition you posted supports.

As for the white guilt, not sure what you are referring to. /shrug

I don't recall quoting your post or bringing your name up anywhere in mine.

But then again, I didn't quote or bring up anyone else either, so...

If you have to question who I was talking to or about, it probably wasn't you.

[Gelston]

I should get a bunch of cash and buy a team and call them the (Insert city) Assholes. I wonder if that would offend people.

[Shaps]

An inference on your part is not an implication on my part.I doubt a priori middle aged black men are statistically more violent than young white men, but I am always open to a posteriori evidence.A biological species is that population which can interbreed and produce viable offspring. I can assure you that with a time machine you could bang Queen Victoria and produce viable offspring; hence, humans have not speciated in the time since Queen Victoria (and quite a bit earlier). Certainly there are many who want to believe our current superior state is due to something beyond dumb luck for having been born at this time in this place, but that is not the case. We might even be able to interbreed with Neanderthals, so little have we evolved biologically since prehistoric times.A trend can have both cyclical and linear components; for instance, sin(x) + x. lim x->inf of sin(x) is undefined, that is true, but it is dominated by lim x->inf of x, so will you be +x, 0, or -x?

How many United States Senators have murdered the President to usurp his position? We have improved on Roman times.
How many of those same Senators hunt our slaves for sport? We have improved on Greek times.
How many of those very same Senators were hauled from their beds (along with their families), tortured, and murdered for being rich Jews? We have improved on European times.

If you want to prove everything cycles back to zero, give me examples.You are very impressive for going out in the world and doing all these things... but it makes me wonder why you are so reluctant to stop using a single racial slur to describe a single sports team. It seems to me like having physically made a difference by affecting real peoples' daily loves would make it that much easier for you to make such a tiny concession.

I really need to figure out how to do that quote separation thing (yes I'm a computer illiterate - shameful I know).

Good conversation again Latrin! - Now to the points:

- From 2011 - interesting stats - Broken down statistically, when 12-13% of the population is committing rougly 25% of all crime and 50%+ in certain statistics, that is pretty high: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr...ables/table-43

- Biologically, you are right we can still breed with one another. It does not mean we have not evolved (physically, mentally, etc.), as we have. Humans are and have evolved, it's not limited to our ability to mate with one another solely. And we have evolved enough, even if only .01% in our DNA to make all the difference in the world. Hopefully we continue that trend and become something even more astounding. For my proof: Check out Stan Lee's Superhumans on the History Channel!!

- Don't use math on me! I'll have to defer to your superior knowledge in this field. All of your examples involve murder, which... we have gotten better about not just straight up killing people. There are plenty of places in the world where this still occurs, and will continue to occur. Many cultures and societies had peaceful periods, then were turned upside down with violence or political unrest. Borders of nations have and still are in dispute and fought over. Resources are fought over in many other places. Hopefully the U.S. retains it's civility, but even we oh so recently in time (relative to human history), had our own national slaughter with the Civil War. To think it won't happen again at some point is to hopeful an idea for me to dream about. Would be nice, but to many assholes out there sadly.

- My original post that got this all started was overall about how every word, idea, inference etc. can be viewed by someone, at some time, from some period, for some reason as offensive. Redskins is just one of those. Some want it gone. Others don't. Some people want little kids not making a gun with their fingers. Some restaurants refuse to allow kids to enter and eat, as they cause a disruption. You can't sing certain lyrics of a song, even if you really like the song, because you might accidentally say n*gger and offend someone. You can't on national television during a football game, say a woman is beautiful (even though she is a beauty queen) without people thinking your sexist. You can't call white trailer trash, trailer trash, because Honey Boo Boo has somehow legitamized them. And it just goes on and on.

They should just make a dictionary of banned words. So we all know what we can and can't say without offending some person or thing. I really don't care if they change the name or not, I just sometimes wish, we could all pretend we're in a comedy club watching Dave Chappelle make fun of everyone and everything, and us all laughing about it. Now that would be fun.

Excellent talk once again! Look forward to next months.

[Tisket]

I should get a bunch of cash and buy a team and call them the (Insert city) Assholes. I wonder if that would offend people.

I'd go to the games just to be able to scream "Go, Assholes!"

Actually, I might already do that with other teams but still, I'd support your team too.

[Latrinsorm]

The fact that you aren't a Redskins fan makes the concession tiny to you.

I would argue changing the team name would be just as offensive to the hundreds of thousands(millions?) of fans as not changing it is to the (hundreds?)tens of thousands of Native Americans.

As with Methais, I encourage you to personally ask a Native American about this issue. As near as I can tell, to use a slur is to treat someone as less than human. To indoctrinate children into the use of this slur by means of 90,000 chanting people is, from my perspective, horrifying.

I have not personally followed a team that has changed its name, but I have followed a team that changed its name and location: the Hartford Whalers are dead. I did not find this experience dehumanizing. This could arguably be because hockey isn't a major sport, but still.

You will easily scoff at this idea, because only your own perception of things matters to you.

A significant amount of empirical evidence contradicts this assertion. I am not sure how much of it is transmittable, but in a general sense I think you would be better off not dismissing disagreement on its face. "Oh you only disagree because you're myopic/stupid/ignant" is unlikely to be universally true, in the same way that "oh you only want to reform welfare because you hate black people" is.

[Latrinsorm]

I really need to figure out how to do that quote separation thing (yes I'm a computer illiterate - shameful I know).

A quote works with tags: [ quote ] opens the tag, [ /quote ] closes it (when you delete the spaces), and everything in between will show up quote-style.

Good conversation again Latrin! - Now to the points:

Thanks!

- From 2011 - interesting stats - Broken down statistically, when 12-13% of the population is committing rougly 25% of all crime and 50%+ in certain statistics, that is pretty high: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr...ables/table-43

I see two problems here:
1. You have equated all crime with violence. This may help or hurt your case, I don't know.
2. You have equated arrests with the commission of crimes, which does not turn out to be the case. I think many people would agree with you that black people are more likely to get arrested.

- Don't use math on me! I'll have to defer to your superior knowledge in this field. All of your examples involve murder, which... we have gotten better about not just straight up killing people. There are plenty of places in the world where this still occurs, and will continue to occur. Many cultures and societies had peaceful periods, then were turned upside down with violence or political unrest. Borders of nations have and still are in dispute and fought over. Resources are fought over in many other places. Hopefully the U.S. retains it's civility, but even we oh so recently in time (relative to human history), had our own national slaughter with the Civil War. To think it won't happen again at some point is to hopeful an idea for me to dream about. Would be nice, but to many assholes out there sadly.

I think it's clear that present day peace far exceeds that of the past. Western Europe hasn't had an international war in almost 70 years, and I challenge you to find a similar period in recorded history. You could argue that this is due merely to the depletion of war-making ability (that is, young men to throw in front of cannons), but 70 years seems like more than enough time to repopulate.

It is certainly true that the rest of the world has not enjoyed as much peace, but I feel this merely illustrates the active ingredients in the method: astonishing wealth, the unflinching vigilance of a superpower. America doesn't care about Africa -> conflict. America cares about the Middle East, but the Middle East is poor -> conflict. America cares about Japan, Japan is rich -> no conflict. When you have no impetus for conflict and you'd get spanked if you did anyway, why would you?

- My original post that got this all started was overall about how every word, idea, inference etc. can be viewed by someone, at some time, from some period, for some reason as offensive. Redskins is just one of those. Some want it gone. Others don't. Some people want little kids not making a gun with their fingers. Some restaurants refuse to allow kids to enter and eat, as they cause a disruption. You can't sing certain lyrics of a song, even if you really like the song, because you might accidentally say n*gger and offend someone. You can't on national television during a football game, say a woman is beautiful (even though she is a beauty queen) without people thinking your sexist. You can't call white trailer trash, trailer trash, because Honey Boo Boo has somehow legitamized them. And it just goes on and on.

But the others that don't don't make the argument that it's not a racial slur. If we're all agreed it's a slur, we shouldn't use it. That seems pretty straightforward and unslippery to me.

[Gelston]

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he would "think about changing" the Washington Redskins' name if he owned the football team as he waded into the controversy involving a word that many consider offensive to Native Americans.

Obama, in an interview with The Associated Press, said team names such as the Redskins offend "a sizable group of people." He said that while fans get attached to the names, nostalgia may not be a good enough reason to keep them in place.

"I don't know whether our attachment to a particular name should override the real legitimate concerns that people have about these things," he said in the interview, which was conducted Friday.

An avid sports fan, Obama said he doesn't think Washington football fans are purposely trying to offend American Indians. "I don't want to detract from the wonderful Redskins fans that are here. They love their team and rightly so," he said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/1...n_4049356.html

[ClydeR]

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he would "think about changing" the Washington Redskins' name if he owned the football team as he waded into the controversy involving a word that many consider offensive to Native Americans.

Why was Obama even talking about this issue?

sin(x) + x. lim x->inf of sin(x) is undefined, that is true, but it is dominated by lim x->inf of x, so will you be +x, 0, or -x?

Your faith in math is misplaced. Math is the least honest of all academic fields. You would do well to remember that.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmAxUAh510s

[Latrinsorm]

Then explain this:



QED