Official Redskins Off-Season News & Rumors-Part Trois

[Giantone]

Originally Posted by HailGreen28

The author of your article needs to check the actual facts.

Short version: You're wrong. The name Redskins isn't racist.

Medium version: The name Redskins wasn't racist when it was coined. It wasn't racist when the team adopted it for a variety of reasons. The people who actually use it now.. HTTR! People who think it's derogatory just can't seem to realize it was adopted and used by the team to root for and identify with, not against. "Redskins" isn't racist now, except for the people making themselves look like racists in protesting the name.

Long version: Well, here's a starter about the name's origins. Refutes some of the falsehoods that anti-Redskins protestors have made.

http://anthropology.si.edu/goddard/redskin.pdf

This Person doesn't agree with you.Hit the link to read the whole article.


Indianz.Com > Doug George-Kanentiio: A Mohawk's perspective on 'Redskins'

Altogether, the Mohawk Nation lost over 9,000,000 acres of land, an area which includes Cooperstown and all of the Adirondacks. This was done without our consent. In order to rationalize the theft of the land falsehoods were created which de-humanized our people. We were no longer friends but demons. We were labeled as savages and cannibals, warlike primitives without intellect. Among the most tragic of profanes were those books used in schools, which grossly distorted our history and passed on terrible lies about us.

The use of “redskins” was among the worse of these labels. That word originally referred to the Beothuks of Newfoundland, a peaceful people who colored their skin with red ochre as adornment and to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Their passivity was mistaken for weakness and after the waves of European diseases killed most of them those who survived were hunted and murdered for sport. By 1830 they were extinct. One of the reprehensible tactics was to remove the skins of the Beothuks and use them as covers for books and as leggings for the hunters.

This act of skinning Native people, both men and women, continued on along the frontier. It was an act of terror meant to instill fear and drive the Natives from coveted lands. It was justified by these stereotypes that were highly effective in undermining the dignity, pride and self-assurance of our people. We are, among all peoples in this hemisphere, the most misunderstood, the most libeled and the most despised because of the lies in the media, in popular literature and, sadly, in the schools.

Doug George-Kanentiio, Akwesasne Mohawk, is a co-founder of the Native American Journalists Association, a former member of the Board of Trustees for the National Museum of the American Indian and the author of many books and articles about Native history and current issues. His latest book is "Iroquois on Fire". He may be reached via e-mail: Kanentiioaol.com. Kanentiio resides on Oneida Iroquois Territory in central New York State.