I understand that some of y’all are ready to start talking about football, again. David Plotz explains “Why Slate will no longer refer to Washington’s NFL team as the Redskins”:
… Americans think differently about race and the language of race than we did 80 years ago. We now live in a world, for instance, in which it’s absolutely unacceptable for an NFL player to utter a racial slur. Changing the way we talk is not political correctness run amok. It reflects an admirable willingness to acknowledge others who once were barely visible to the dominant culture, and to recognize that something that may seem innocent to you may be painful to others. In public discourse, we no longer talk about groups based on their physical traits: No one would ever refer to Asians as yellow-skinned. This is why the majority of teams with Indian nicknames have dropped them over the past 40 years.
So while the name Redskins is only a bit offensive, it’s extremely tacky and dated—like an old aunt who still talks about “colored people” or limps her wrist to suggest someone’s gay…
But seriously: More power to those who want the name to change (although I’m not sure I want to think about where future ahistorical fans would take the term ‘Redtails‘).
What’s on the agenda for the weekend, sports-related or otherwise?
Suffern ACE
Dragon boat races and the nypl record sale. And that’ll about do it until payday.
Yatsuno
That name change idea gets bounced around every year and every year it gets smacked down. The owner has said he ain’t changing it, so until he’s worm food that’s that. I agree it needs to change but we’re waiting on an old to get out of the way.
Doing as much nada as possible this weekend. Been going full-bore the last few and this time it will be nothing but chill.
MorningtonCrescent
I’m sure many here have seen this before, but my favorite Fred Astaire movie dance is in Royal Wedding where he dances on the walls and ceiling. Astaire famously did his movie dances without cuts or editing. Here’s the excerpt:
youtube.com/watch?v=CsoYyDlYU8M
They did this by constructing the set as a barrel and rotating it. Here’s how it was done:
youtube.com/watch?v=i0g3g6AvLtM
Magnificent work.
Litlebritdifrnt
I took place in the Dragon Boat races in Hong Kong back in the day. It was immense fun. We lost, but there is nothing to compare to being a drummer during the race. Pure adreneline pumping through your veins.
Violet
So what is Slate going to call them? Indecipherable symbol followed by “The Team Formerly Known as the Redskins”?
Violet
Have there been any more updates from Mary G about HBM since the one in this thread? Been thinking about them and hope everything is going well.
raven
The BRAVES rampage continues but Chief Nock-A-Homa is gone a dawn.
raven
@Violet: Yea, they checked in on John’s sober thread.
balloon-juice.com/2013/08/09/i-think-im-done/#comments
#32. Higgs was there but he may have deleted his comment.
Violet
@raven: Thanks. Glad everything seems to be moving forward well.
raven
Jesus Christ, make a dude feel old will ya
Mustang Bobby
Heading out in the morning for Perrysburg, Ohio, where I’ll be visiting my parents, and then Monday we head to Stratford, Ontario, for our annual pilgrimage to the Shakespeare Festival. I’ve been going pretty much every summer since 1970, and it’s the best theatre in North America. (Two bookstores there carry my plays, too.)
Amir Khalid
Will Randinho be back with us when the season of real football starts?
@Yatsuno:
When the name change does occur, expect a substantial contingent of the team’s fans to scream bloody murder. The foreign owner of a newly promoted English Premier League club, Hull City Association Football Club, is changing its 109-year-old name to the American-style Hull City Tigers. (“Tigers” is the club’s traditional nickname.) He says loads of other clubs are called Something City so the name Hull City AFC isn’t distinctive. Fans are upset, but many seem resigned to it because without his money, the club would have gone under a few seasons ago.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Linky.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
How about the Washington Redacted or just the Washington NFL Team?
Fluke bucket
@efgoldman: grandchildren are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I always said I didn’t want any but I sure am glad I got them anyway. You are going to LOVE it!
Keith G
Good on Slate. The name needs to change. Maybe the new name could be the Villagers as in the Washington Villagers.
As far as Fred Astaire movies go. I prefer the 1930s – Top Hat or Swing Time, for example.
Construction project in the neighborhood has FUBARed the internet. Comcast has been trying to resolve it for the better part off two days.
Cloud?
We ain’t got no stinging cloud, mutha fuckas.
Mike in NC
@efgoldman:Ever passed by the House of Hair Fashion? I have a buddy who lives nearby and we always laughed at their huge sign.
Fluke bucket
@raven: The Braves have not lost a game since they put a Waffle House in at The Ted. Coincidence? I think not.
Long Tooth
The tribes may have still been occupying Alcatraz (circa 1972) when Stanford chose to retire the name ‘Indians’. Its student body then voted to re-name the university’s teams the ‘Thunder Chickens’. It was an awesome name, and would have proved immortal in college lore. But the vote was overturned by stick-in-the-mud alumni, who re-christened the teams ‘The Cardinal’. Singular, annoyingly so. That’s how I remember the story, anyway. Go Bears.
Keith G
@Mustang Bobby: I always liked Perrysburg. I grew up in the farm land between Waterville and Whitehouse. As a 14 year old, my first summer job was there. It was always a nice town to hang out in.
Mike in NC
As somebody who lived in Redskins-land (the MD and VA suburbs) for 20 years, and who didn’t care a rat’s ass about pro football, I’d say changing the team’s name/logo could probably cost the owners around $250 million, so that’s just not going to happen.
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid: You would be shocked at how many football fans/handegg haters have no idea that the actual name of the sport is “association football”.
p.a.
@efgoldman: don’t miss the food fest and zydeco dance that’s part of the Pawt. Art Fest’s 1st week.
Mike in NC
Washington Filibusters would be a good name.
Mustang Bobby
@Keith G: Yeah, it was a nice place to grow up, and it’s still a lot like it was when I was a kid all those years ago.
Amir Khalid
@MikeJ:
Most of the planet does indeed call the sport “football”, without using/translating the word “association” in its name.
J.Ty
@Long Tooth: I’d always heard that the vote results were “Robber Barons” winning, but the stodgy old university thought it was a wee disrespectful to old Leland, and made them change it. The lameness of Cardinal is where the band got the idea for the tree.
lurker dean
@Violet: there was also an update here:
balloon-juice.com/2013/08/09/farewell-amelia-peabody/#comment-4566833
hope mary g and HBM are doing well.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Calling your club “AFC” rather than the more common “FC” seems mildly affected. It seems fine to me to call the an American-style “Hull City Tigers”, but I can understand why fans might be upset. It doesn’t seem near as bad an offense as Real Salt Lake or DC United, which try to appropriate famous names without any of the history that makes them appropriate. I’m willing to cut Chivas USA some slack, since they’re at least owned by the same group as the original Chivas. Galaxy and Red Bulls may sound goofy, but at least they aren’t trying to trade on somebody else’s hard earned glory.
Redshirt
@Mike in NC: They’d make a lot of money in selling new merchandise, so it might be a wash.
Regardless, it’s the right thing to do. “Redskins” is a deplorable name.
Cleveland Indians are next on the list.
Katherine
oh i had a crush on Steve Bagarus when he was QB for the Redskins / never heard of him ?
How about Sammy Baugh ? it was the 1940;s and it was Griffith Stadium / my grandpa wd get season tickets / every single Sunday my mom and i would go down on the muddy field to get closer looks / sigh
MikeJ
@Amir Khalid: Agreed, but anybody who pays any attention to the existence of FIFA should at least know the name of the sport.
Maxwel
Slate’s still in business?
Roger Moore
@Maxwel:
FTFY.
@Redshirt:
Chief Wahoo is a crime against humanity. OK, not really, but it seems that way sometimes.
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
If they stay up, all will be forgiven and forgotten.
burnspbesq
@Roger Moore:
I’d say Washington Maroons, because of the uniform and their idjit fan base, but my high school’s teams are the Maroons, and I’d hate to make a mistake and root for the Dan Snyders.
burnspbesq
@Redshirt:
Why stop there?
Kansas City Chiefs
Atlanta Braves
Chicago Black Hawks
Bradley Braves
Florida State Seminoles
North Dakota Fighting Sioux
Central Michigan Chippewas
Utah Utes
And a few hundred high schools
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Strike Back is back. As they are always after terrorists, I wish they would do a season hunting our domestic terrorists.
Neddie Jingo
I’ve been calling them the Washington Reagans since about the Richie Petitbon era. I’d have thought that would have caught on.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@burnspbesq: including mine.
Heliopause
Meaning who, whites? Yes, he’s quite right that when a sufficient number of liberal whites had this show up on their radar screens it would become an actionable problem. That non-whites had a problem with this decades ago, not so much. Once again, this is just another excuse for liberal whites to pat themselves on the back for their progressivism when the offense has been very obvious for a very long time.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
Actually, this is one area where the NCAA has done a really good job. They require schools to get approval from the tribes they’re using for their mascots or face penalties (loss of the right to host post-season games, IIRC). The remaining schools have mostly gotten permission from the affected tribes, sometimes only by agreeing to changes to specific things the affected tribe found offensive, or by agreeing to have their mascot be a member of the tribe. It seems like a sensible rule. If the Seminole tribe is OK with Florida State being the Seminoles, who am I to object? The only thing that could make it better is if the penalties for non-compliant schools were more serious.
butler
Real freaking brave of Slate, to make this decision (which many other news organizations made long ago) only after the Washington Post (the newspaper that relies on having access to the team in order for its sports page to function) was sold off from the rest of the company that owns Slate. I’m sure its just a coincidence that this decision came less than a week after Slate and the newspaper were no longer part of the same company.
butler
@Mike in NC: You’d say that based on what? Their stupid stadium only cost $250 million.
When the name change comes it won’t be out of any sense of justice or sensitivity. It will be at the point that Dan Synder figures he will make the most money off it. All the old “Redskins” merchandise will suddenly skyrocket in price since it will be valued by the old line racist fans, while at the same time the rest of the fan base will be shelling out for new merch with the new team name on it.
mclaren
Q: What’s the difference between George W. Bush and Barak Obama?
A: George W. Bush would cut open a newborn infant just to see what’s inside. Barak Obama would cut open a newborn infant if his advisors told him it was necessary for the security of the United States.
JasonF
I think a good compromise would be to keep the name of the team as the Redskins but change the mascot from a Native American to a potato.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Black Hawk was a famous and heroic person from that region of the country. There is a difference between naming a team after, for example, Frederick Douglass and calling the team the N*****s. N’est-ce pas?
PGE
Also, the team is only indirectly named after Black Hawk: the original owner named it after a military unit he served in. (Which, of course, was named after Black Hawk.) Of course, one wouldn’t know that from the logo.
Cermet
Why not keep the name ‘Red Skins’ and have a ‘white’ guy in a speedo with a terrible sun burn as their logo … keeps the name, and explains the nickname without issues. Still, as JasonF says, a potato works, considering the thugs in congress.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven: Ha, I remember that! Some of the local headlines were calling it “The Dusk of a New Era.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Mustang Bobby: Stratford Festival, one of my favourite places anywhere. I’ve had some unforgettable experiences there, theatrical and otherwise.
How did I miss the fact that you’re a playwright? Would you mind* sharing a link or at least providing titles?
*Duh, playwright, don’t think he will mind at all.