which brings us back to why using a term like redskin is just a little fucked up. these sorts of things were justified by claiming the natives to be savages with no regard for the nuances of civilization and as such could not be taught to live side by side with the invading armies. christopher columbus himself remarked at how peaceful the people were, and how easy it was to enslave the native populations. what the western world has done to the native americans is a truly horrible part of the worlds history. the team can and likely should change their name.
just because the invaders committed such behavior in no way equates to the natives not doing so among themselves before they were invaded. how does what the invaders did dispute the argument of what the natives did prior to the arrival of any other culture?
seriously, anybody wanting to learn about the first impressions of the natives or just imperialism in general should check out the work of aime cesaire
just because the natives did so amongst themselves does not equate to the invaders coming in and doing it to a foreign land and people... see how that works the truth is that for the longest time history has been content to say that the native american people were nothing more than savages without their own highly complex interconnect nations. the reality of the situation is just opposite of that. whats done and done and nothing can change that, not hundreds of years after the fact. but we at least owe it to the innocent to acknowledge the wrongdoings of those in the past.
no, that isn't how it works at all since I am not trying to excuse the invaders. that is fine and it is 100% irrelevant to the claim being made. nobody was saying they were savages in the sense that they were less evolved, both as a people and a culture, than the European invaders. the argument was that they perpetrated the same types of atrocities amongst the different tribes in their own warfare as the invaders did to them, so it isn't as if they were some pacifist, peaceful culture that was victimized by behavior that they would never commit themselves by the brutish and evil white man. that is the romantic, liberal fairy tale of the native americans that is being discussed, not the claim that they were prehistoric savages.
Regardless if the natives were barbarians or savages (which is not doing their culture or history any justice and shorting them), the fact of the matter is they did not invade someone else's sovereign entity. The wrongdoers in this case were the Invaders (European colonists) because they invaded a foreign land and killed and imprisoned the natives in the process to take over that land. If you were to say that the Invaders were coming to this foreign land (North America) to provide freedom and liberty to the native people (Native Americans) then that's an entirely different story however that is not what happened here.
do you know that over 90% of the indigenous population of the Americas was killed due to epidemic disease within only a few hundred years of first contact with Europeans? I never hear anyone bitching about that. Anyone getting butthurt over the European takeover of the Americas is an ethnocentric little bitch. The world was a place of constant warfare and conquest. I do think the US govt. treated them unfairly but how does that relate to this discussion?? They're called the Redskins because it alludes to a ferocious warrior culture, that's IT. How bout any of you guys calling for the Redskins to change their name answer my question: should the Blackfoot tribe change their name?? Isn't that racist too???
two points I'd like to make about this. One, the argument wasn't about it being their land first and were invaded. the argument was the romanticized version of Native Americans to portray them as innocent victims of brutish behavior. they were just as savage as their invaders. two, the idea that that they had some inherent God given right to the land just because they were here first. the property you inhabit is only yours to the extent that you can defend and keep it. the Earth did not come into existence with a sign that said "for Native Americans" planted in the middle of North America. hell, they were invaders to the land themselves and slaughtered the buffalo that were here first. maybe we should give it back to the buffalo. The U.S. does not have any absolute right to the land that is now the United States of America. our right to the land is our ability to keep it. plain and simple. the land belonged to the Native Americans for as long as they could keep it. then the Europeans took it, and have had the power to enforce their ownership. did the Indians lose the war and their land? of course. but that is simply the result of human migration that has shaped the world. there is no wrongdoer in this case. it isn't as if the invaders created rules of warfare to fight for the land that gave them an advantage.
there is about 20,000 years of history behind the americas. if anyone is being ethnocentric it is those that refuse to accept that the natives were not as 'savage' and uncivilized as western history textbooks would lead you to believe.
The tribes that populated what is now the Lower 48 states were not one monolithic entity. Although there was trade and treaties between the different tribes there was also wars (closer to what is known as skirmishes today) over hunting areas and just to raise hell like youngsters have been doing for centuries.
Washington Redskins=New York N*****s=San Francisco Ch***s=Miami Spi**. None are appropriate. No surprise they were the last team to de-segregate.
You're an idiot that's basically saying that Hitler was just as much of a savage as the Jews he killed (both were acts of genocide).
no, you're an idiot for attempting to claim that was what I am saying because my statement has nothing to do with the scope of death.
Are these suing Indians a recognized tribe? If so, their efforts would be better spent on building a casino and making millions...
How else can one accurately describe the relationship between Native Americans and European Settlers? Tribes are exploited by casino operations... If anyone actually reads the article they realize that the only reason the name still exists is because of the timeliness of the 1999 lawsuit against it relative to the team's existence, and for no other reason, which is a ridiculous and specious justification. It's inappropriateness is acknowledged and should be universally accepted.
