Spanish Basketball vs. NFL RACISM-OFF!!!!

As many of you surely know, the Spanish basketball team released a photograph prior to the Olympics that featured them affecting a stereotypical "slant-eye" gesture. Of course, no one said anything about the Chinese response of a photograph of Yao Ming eating traditionally marinated Boquerones. This is kinda lame and easy: yes it's offensive. It's terribly offensive and really stupid and childish and it walks that razor thin line where you're not positive if you're outraged at how racially insensitive it is or just how little thought it took. The real fun, of course, comes when the NFL enters the picture. 

Here's Mr. Irrelevant's take on the Big Lead's take. To summarize: TBL posted that America had no right to be mount a high horse on this issue because of the NFL franchise the Washington Redskins. Mr. Irrelevant points to a poll that shows a whopping 90 percent of American Indians have no problem with the name. It suddenly seems so long ago that Braves, Indians and Redskins' games were being picketed by various American Indian groups who took offense. Where I begin to take issue is the parting shot offered by post author Chris Mottram

Isn’t it a pain in the ass when all those pesky “facts” and “evidence” get in the way of make-believe?

Now, I understand that Mottram is a 'Skins fan and, therefore, justifiable in his defense. Rooting for a sports franchise means accepting the good with the bad, like enjoying the Twins' penchant for winning on the cheap and putting together well-constructed teams while understanding that many fans are still of the opinion that "well-constructed teams" mean "white teams". It's a constant balancing act, and the will to defend stems from the fact that no one wants their favorite sports franchise to be bad in any way. Mottram is also correct in his use of this poll, which (by polling standards) seems to be pretty fair (I would say that 768 is a pretty low sample size, but I doubt a higher one would change the results). 

However...

What is more interesting about this poll is not that so many American Indians are not offended by the name, but why they are not. Being a bleeding heart liberal American Indian myself, I know why I find it offensive: it is a derogatory term for American Indians being used as the name of a professional football team. As TBL said in the original post: 

Say what you want about European racism, but Spanish soccer fans aren’t galloping ignorantly through the gates in blackface to cheer on N—– FC.

(Addendum: I would like to point out that European racism, particularly towards blacks, is fucking terrible and far worse that you will find in most places in America. Remember, as bad as we are we still had to go through that whole Civil Rights thing, which Europe avoided like the Pla...ooh...still feels too soon...)

I do, however, understand that I cannot speak for all American Indians on this issue, and my calling them American Indians illustrates that point. I use that term because the term Native American is not only incredibly bland, but it unfairly incorporates us into the United States and assumes that we had some say in how the modern iteration of this country came to be. American Indian allows me to remember that we are different, that there is a certain pleasantness in the difference, and that it is important to remember how different we once were and how different we will always remain from white folk. 

This does not change the fact that Redskin, no matter how many people find it offensive and no matter what color they are, is an offensive term that was used either a) as a simple descriptor based on skin color or b) based on the blood that came from the head during a scalping. Either one of those leads to a bad word to use to describe an entire group of people (particularly when our skin is, in fact, brown). Mottram is right when he says that not enough people are offended by this word to make it an issue, but chooses to leave it at that. What is not taken into account is the fact that part of the reason that the name is accepted by so many American Indians is that it has been the name of a major football franchise since 1933. There is no way to deny the fact that this has made this word more acceptable that things like the n-word (for African Americans) or the s-word (for people of Latin and South American descent). It also certainly portrays a negative stereotype of American Indians being warlike and savage for the simple fact that the name is used for a team in a competitive physical sport like football. 

The numbers of who is and who isn't offended certainly represent an interesting view of this issue, but they don't tell the whole story. The story is that it is fundamentally wrong for a franchise in any form of business in the 21st Century to name themselves after a derogatory term for a group of people. But, like on so many other issues, I can understand why people would disagree.