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It wasn't even a caricature, like Cleveland's logo. It was/is an accurate portrait of what an indian brave that had just kicked your ass might well look like.
The Braves have sold merchandise with that logo on it since the 1960s.
If you go into the Braves' stores at Turner Field or CNN Center, you can buy hats, shirts and jackets with that image on them today, just as you could last year, and the years before that.
The only thing the Braves were going to do was to have the players wear the cap with the logo/image on it, during BP.
Now they're not going to wear them during BP.
That is all.
I had no idea the Braves had used it on anything in the past 30 years. I guess the fans who buy that merchandise don't travel much.
I think there are valid reasons to not be offended by it (Eso is right that it's not particularly caricature-esque IMO) but just because they've been doing it for a long time isn't proof that it's right. I think the Washington football name should be changed and the fact that they've had it for 75 years or whatever doesn't make that right in my opinion.
In the minds of the culture that had just waged a successful ethnic cleansing/mostly successful genocide against them anyway.
//and I say this as as Braves fan who cherishes the history of the image - but to say that one doesn't understand what's offensive about it at this stage? Really.
Hundreds of thousands of them have been resting in peace for centuries now.
So have the people who put them there.
Genocide is an inappropriate term here. The vast bulk of the loss of NA Indian population occurred well before colonization started in earnest, and was caused by disease.
Up to 80-90% of the NA Indian population died in the late-16th, early 17th centuries. The European colonists arrived into a largely depopulated landscape.
Was there ethnic cleansing? Definitely. Genocide? No.
In their wigwams, snuggled comfortably with squaw and pappose, a plume of picturesque smoke twisting from It's apex.
Well yeah, them and everyone else.
[A long-hidden Crystal Pepsi to McCoy]
When the topic came up at Braves Journal, many earlier references were found, including Furman Bisher writing in 1991 during Atlanta's WS run. It's been in use for some time.
I don't see what Indians have to do with Barves. What is a Barve anyway?
You have a right to expect me to address you as Drew, not Dror or D-mac or Druid, and a right to expect some input before I decide to launch a marketing campaign based on your name or heritage.
I've never understood what's to get worked up about with what seems to me to be little more than an effort to encode the rules of common courtesy I was taught in elementary school. We ask people how they want to be identified, and if we're using a peoples' likeness in a multi-billion dollar business, we make some effort to do due diligence that those people find the representation respectful.
What important things shall we discuss? Clearly you have some deep messages to relate.
I don't see what Indians have to do with Barves. What is a Barve anyway?
.jpg]I think this is a barve.
as we see in response to the weekly Murray Chass blog.
Not to derail, but there are any number of scholarly resources that disagree with you. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but it is far from a universally held one.
It's not that it's "right." It's that it is stupid. This wasn't an issue until it was on a BP cap and now it's no longer an issue because it's not going to be on a BP cap even though the Braves have sold and will continue to sell merchandise with this logo on it, and nobody in the media cares or realizes this. The logo didn't go away, it just went out of the spotlight.
I laughed.
That's right. It shouldn't be in the spotlight. Braves fans with a knowledge of Braves history understand whatever "nuance" there is in this hideous and seemingly offensive logo. Don't make it part of the official uniform, even the most minor part of the official uniform, because tons of other people become aware of it and it will be misinterpreted. End of story.
In 2003, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez urged Latin Americans to not celebrate the Columbus Day holiday. Chavez blamed Christopher Columbus for leading the way in the mass genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish.[38]
In his book American Holocaust, David Stannard argues that the destruction of the aboriginal peoples of the Americas, in a "string of genocide campaigns" by Europeans and their descendants, was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.[22] Stannard's argument has been supported by Ward Churchill, who has said "it was precisely malice, not nature, that did the deed."[36] Stannard's claim of 100 million deaths has been challenged because he does not cite any demographic evidence to support this number, and because he makes no distinction between death from violence and death from disease. Noble David Cook, Latin Americanist and history professor at Florida International University, considers books such as Stannard's–a number of which were released around the year 1992 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the Columbus voyage to America–to be an unproductive return to Black Legend-type explanations for depopulation. According to Noble David Cook, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact."[37]
That seems like a good outcome to me. In fact, I'd love to see the Redskins do the same thing.
I don't think there's anything inherently offensive about the name "Braves," but the tomahawk chop seems a bit much.
What I really don't get is why it's ok for the Indians to have a Native American Sambo on their caps.
It really is beyond dispute that the vast majority of American Indians died from disease, not violence.
That disease was coming even if it was only 1000 Peace Corps volunteers that actually came to the Americas. Many NA tribes suffered the mass die-off from disease before they even contacted Europeans, as it spread through inter-Indian trade.
In his book American Holocaust, David Stannard argues that the destruction of the aboriginal peoples of the Americas, in a "string of genocide campaigns" by Europeans and their descendants, was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.[22] Stannard's argument has been supported by Ward Churchill, who has said "it was precisely malice, not nature, that did the deed."[36] Stannard's claim of 100 million deaths has been challenged because he does not cite any demographic evidence to support this number, and because he makes no distinction between death from violence and death from disease. Noble David Cook, Latin Americanist and history professor at Florida International University, considers books such as Stannard's–a number of which were released around the year 1992 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the Columbus voyage to America–to be an unproductive return to Black Legend-type explanations for depopulation. According to Noble David Cook, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact."[37]
Thanks for the quote.
Yes, the Spanish actually wanted the Meso-American Indians alive to work for them. The last thing they wanted to do was exterminate the labor source for their Haciendas.
In South America, the Conquistadors largely married noble Incan women, and created a hybrid culture. Again, no organized attempts to kill the natives, as can be seen by looking at the racial composition of South America today.
Yes.
The best scholarship I've seen is that 70-80% of North American Indians had died before the Pilgrims landed.
Plymouth itself was an abandoned Indian village where everyone had died. The whole coastal region was largely depopulated. That's why tiny bands of settler had such an easy time claiming huge tracts of land.
I'd rather see more Sambos as mascots. Make it fun. Leering leprechauns, joyful Jews with yarmulkes and pais, Angelfood McSpade in a baseball cap, go nuts, have fun with it. Ethnic identity doesn't have to be shameful, it can be joyous and ebullient.
In N America, most of them died before anyone who could attempt to kill them even arrived.
This is a separate issue, though. It doesn't make what happened to the peoples who survived the plagues any less horrifying because there were fewer of them to be conquered, nor does it make the conquerors less culpable. In fact, the mass die offs from disease is probably what made the conquest of America by Europe possible.
OK, but the PC-ism of today is OMG YOU SAID "BLACK" INCORRECTLY THIS IS WAR BLOOD WE WANT YOUR BLOOD AND YOUR MONEY. It's several orders of magnitude beyond "exerting some control".
Like I said, ethnic cleansing, not genocide.
Right, but no one tried to exterminate the people who were left. They mixed trade with pushing them off their lands. There were massacres and dispossessions, but there was never any systematic effort to eliminate populations.
In Latin America, where the Europeans gained rapid control over large populations, the desire was exactly the opposite of genocide. There were very, very few European colonists. The Conquistadors and their descendants had zero interest in eliminating the natives; they wanted them as a labor force.
Again, not saying they didn't mistreat the Indians, but there was no attempt at, nor desire for, extermination.
Most Indian wars weren't genocidal. Early on the Spaniards had some genocidal impulses, but they were generally restrained by the Jesuits (this is an oversimplification, but it works here). In America, Indian wars were generally land grabs, with massacres intended as a show of terrorism. Not nice, but not genocidal, with some local exceptions.
FWIW, the logo is clearly a stereotype. The only Indians who regularly wore mohawks were the Pawnee who lived in Kansas and Nebraska. I'm not going to make a ruling on whether it is offensive or not, but, unless the artist thought he was depicting a Pawnee, the image is by definition a stereotype.
To the losers, the small pox infected blankets.
Change the team name to the Bravos,
You could have Pavarotti be the mascot.
Although not large scale or particularly organized there were also a large number of attempts at local exterminations in California in the early/mid 1800's.
Sure. But local massacres were a feature of war from time immemorial. Go read up on Timurlane if you want to see some massacring.
Genocide is a fairly unique, largely 20th century, phenomenon.
Sure -- you shouldn't settle for anything less than 3 percent at the very minimum, surely.
no one anywhere said this
I think that there are different definitions of "genocide" operating here. My mention of the Pequot War and Pops' references to local exterminations point to the wiping out of smaller tribes, which we're defining as genocide. The tribal groups were small enough (low thousands, generally) that you could call it a "local massacre" if you wanted to. If you define genocide as meaning the deliberate destruction of a cultural and often linguistic group then there were genocides in American history. If you require a larger body count then there weren't.
Millions of commercials air every day portraying white males as incompetent half-wits. No protests because they can take it. Try that with another group and you'll have white PC douchbags at your door. Because, of course, those others groups are weak and need protection.
Edit: Of course I should say that they are not weak. Our society has spawned an industry of people who get offended on behalf of everyone. Somehow we have seen fit to give these people power to censor anything and everything. Someday it will not be so.
You have to understand where snapper is coming from. He's done this in other threads. He is trying to narrow the definition of genocide so that it only applies to the Holocaust and Russia under Stalin. He will then blame those two events on lack of religion leading to a lack of morals.
Attempts to deny the existence of Cannibal Holocaust & Zombie Holocaust are futile.
Tell that to the people of Jericho.
www.White(andor)Man'sBurdenThinkFactory.com
so?
the commercials depicting white males as incompetent halfwits are easily 90% plus created, written and filmed by white males. they are in control of their cultural stereotypes.
btw, have you seen any of golden corral's campaign? the black family where the young kid basically cons his impressionable father into going to the restaurant? i think i've seen that a thousand times. just going there because the popular image of the father as the last one to get it isn't restricted to white males.
Men and women of just about any type are depicted as incompetent half-wits in American TV commercials. Just as we have the commercials with men who will plot like Wile E. Coyote for a bottle of beer they could easily buy at the corner store for a few bucks, we have women who will do the same for a spoonful of low-fat yogurt or chocolate pudding. I don't see that white men are being singled out. Perhaps white men are the butt of the joke more often because white men are present on TV more than anyone else.
Way to put words in my mouth that I never said.
The Armenians count as a genocide. The Chinese in Indonesia count as a genocide. The Rwandan Hutu massacre of Tutsi's counts as a genocide. Cambodia under Pol Pot counts as a genocide. The Nazis had 3 or more genocides (Jews, Gypsys, Homosexuals). The Soviets multiple also (de-kulakization, the terror famines against the Ukrainians and various Central Asian people).
Genocide is a fairly unique phenomenon where a racial or religious group or class is singled out for extermination, usually as a scapegoat for some failure of the regime or broader society.
Wiping out a village b/c you want their land or their gold is evil, but it's not genocide. No one talks about the Roman genocide of the Sabines, or Timurlane's genocide in Damascus.
I think that there are different definitions of "genocide" operating here. My mention of the Pequot War and Pops' references to local exterminations point to the wiping out of smaller tribes, which we're defining as genocide. The tribal groups were small enough (low thousands, generally) that you could call it a "local massacre" if you wanted to. If you define genocide as meaning the deliberate destruction of a cultural and often linguistic group then there were genocides in American history. If you require a larger body count then there weren't.
Correct. Local massacres of thousands or tens of thousands of people are so common in history as to defy counting. The Mongols and their successors states slaughtered conquered cities by the hundreds of thousands and millions. But, they never tried to wipe out an ethnic, religious or class group.
To define every massacre as a genocide denudes the word of meaning, and robs us of a term to describe a very specific 20th century phenomenon.
So the attempted extermination of Amalekites (for example) doesn't count?
This is absolutely true, but even worse is the way the potential customers of the product Madison Ave wants to sell are portrayed..beer commercials are probably the worst, but for some reason most advertisers think that their buyers like to think of themselves as idiots.
It might have been I guess, or it might have been a simple massacre or tribal war. OT history is not in fact history in the sense we think of it.
The Amalekites might have been a real people that the Israelites exterminated, or they may have just been a band under a guy named Amalek who lost a turf war.
We simply can't know.
But the Pequot were a nation and language group who were all but wiped out. By the OED definition ("The deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group") it absolutely is genocide. There weren't many of them, but they were a definable and separate group and they were eliminated. If we only think of nations and peoples and languages in modern terms (i.e., with numbers usually counted in the millions) then a group like the Pequot seem piddling, but they were a recognizable and separate cultural and linguistic group. Does wiping them out not count as genocide?
In modern terms, if the people of New Zealand were to systematically murder the entire nation of Nauru (pop. ~10,000), is that genocide? If not, it would only be because you can only commit genocide against a group of over $large_number people. Which would seem to be an argument that the dictionary definition of genocide is incorrect, or at least incomplete.
Well they need a joke and the only safe target is a white male. There's a commercial out now where the white guy is playing catch with his son and the son throws like a - have the PC police on standby - girl. But then in the reveal, it turns out the Dad also throws like a girl. Madison Avenue Magic. Now imagine if they had accidentally implied the Dad was gay. Blood flowing through the streets, everyone is fired. Again, because somehow this is a weak group that needs protection. Which of course they don't but this is the society we have created.
The Braves logo is a cartoon. Nobody really believes that Indians look or act this way, just as no one thinks that sponges on the ocean floor wear square pants, it's just something silly to try to move some merch. To act as if this is a real scourge that needs to be stomped out to protect the fragile Native American community...far more racist.
Except that I'm not aware of a single NA group -- made up of, you know, people who actually are of that ancestry -- that are anything but opposed to logos like this.
Why is the idea that if the group targeted being cartoonized/logoized/whatever considers it offensive, we ought to respect such a difficult concept?
If a friggin troupe of bears tonight learns the ability to speak and paint signs, then marches on Daley Plaza demanding that the Cubs and Bears change their logo and rename the teams -- the ####### bears have a better idea of what it means to be a bear than I do, so fine... I'll buy new gear and adapt to the seeing the Chicago Cheap Beer Guzzling Trixies playing at Wrigley Field or the Chicago Heart Attacks in Waiting playing on Sundays.
I mean, if in doubt - ask the group being depicted... if the majority of them are offended, then what's the big deal about respecting their ability to determine whether they're offended and acting appropriately?
The Parent Whisperer - Math
By goldencorral
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neg_LI8-Ljo&sns=em
This.
Nobody consulted this white male. Even if 90% of the commercials are created by white men doesn't mean 90% of white men are okay with being portrayed as stereotypical dumbasses. If Dan Snyder was Native-American would that nullify the concerns about his team's name?
Do you just take it on faith that's true? Because empirical data suggests you are wrong. Not just a little wrong, either:
In 2004, the Annenberg Public Policy Center published a survey of nearly 800 people of Native American ancestry and only 9% of them took issue with the name "Redskins". Nine percent. That's not a misprint.
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/NewsDetails.aspx?myId=89
In 2002, Sports Illustrated found 75% of Native Americans don't feel team nicknames such as these contribute to discrimination. Only 23% objected to the Braves' "tomahawk chop" - while 28% said they liked it - the rest didn't care one way or the other.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1025046/index.htm
The PC police has decided what's offensive on behalf of those they've defined as (as Robert in Manhattan Beach aptly said) "weak and in need of protection." Except most of the members of the supposedly deeply offended group aren't actually offended.
You're just playing with us now, right?
I've become persuaded, thanks to THAT other thread, for the first time ever that the liberal smear machine actually exists. Nice to see you extending it an open invitation.
A friend of mine was babbling on at a liberal fundraiser about how x and y 'looked back' to Native American practices and took their 'authenticity' and harmony from them. Without giving the matter much thought I said something like 'you know, not all Native Americans were angels. Some of their early practices were pretty barbaric. Maybe it's the practice itself more than the source that we should be looking at'. You could have heard Chris Matthews' testicle drop.
Which hindered you not at all in ascribing the most disgusting motives to people you disagreed with in the Schilling thread.
Look in the mirror, pal.
Genocide takes a lot of machinery, of the kind that wasn't possible to come by during most of the pre-20th century.
Yeah. That's why I blame slavery in the US largely on the black Africans who sold their own into slavery.
Yeah, but how are you going to have a Faceless Man as a mascot? Every hat would have to have a different logo on it.
No, you can be offended if you like obviously. But me, personally, if I were really going to try and engage the questions and issues haunting the American Indian populations, I'd probably try to find some American Indians and ask them, "hey, what are your real, life impacting issues?" And if they responded "rampant unemployment, alcoholism and substance abuse and economic and social depression across the communities of our people" I probably wouldn't respond to that by picketing the Redskins because of their logo or team name.
YMMV, of course.
"You PC #######, how dare you? If you were really concerned about Native Americans, you'd be out there protesting against systematic social issues like unemployment and drug abuse. You're a fascist."
"Really? That's where you're going? Look we all know this is not a major social problem but it would take 5 seconds to change it and nobody would be worse off. Now, can I expect you to join me in tomorrow's march asking for more jobs programs?"
"Why would I want to join you in a fruitless demonstration against a systematic social issue like unemployment? What a waste of time!"
"Too bad. You going to the game Sunday?"
I thought the gist of that spot was that the dad had bought the sponsor's new car, and to protect the car he was teaching the kid to throw weakly so as to not hit the car. My wife didn't see it that way, so apparently the ad was unclear or too subtle for its own good.
I know about the polls in which large majorities of native Americans questioned replied that they didn't mind the Braves, Redskins, or Indians names and logos. If the poll results were reversed, that would be an additional reason for my opposition to those names and logos, but my opposition really comes from feeling that it's not very kind or thoughtful to name a sports team after an ethnic group and have its players prance around with not only the group's name, but a stereotyped depiction of one of its member individuals, emblazoned on their clothing. It doesn't matter to me whether that hurts their feelings or not.
I guess I'm more inclined to respect the results of those polls, although on an aesthetic level, I make a distinction between (say) the tomahawk chop/the late Chief Noc-a-homa and the so-called "screaming savage" who doesn't look the slightest bit savage to me.
If you want to talk about an example of PC that ascends to the Mt. Everest level of self-parody, I'd nominate the change of the Washington basketball team's name from "Bullets" to "Wizards" on the grounds that the former nickname fomented "a climate of violence". I'm not in favor of changing the Braves/Indians/Redskins names, but at least I can see the point of those who want to do so.
No girl on earth throws like that. Your reading of that ad is the only one like that I've seen.
I'd nominate the change of the Washington basketball team's name from "Bullets" to "Wizards" on the grounds that the former nickname fomented "a climate of violence".
Did they say "fomented"? It's more of a constant reminder people were getting their asses shot and killed on a regular basis in the area, seemed like an ok idea to me.
And that's what these issues mostly come down to: taste and class.
Seriously, how many basketball fans do you think really saw the name "Bullets" on a jersey and thought, "Wow, that reminds me, there was a drive-by shooting on Benning Road last night"?
The Baltimore Bullets moved to the DC area in 1973, and changed their name from "Capital Bullets" to "Washington Bullets" in 1975. If at that point they'd decided to go with the more alliterative "Washington Wizards", it would have been one thing. But Abe Pollen's sincerity doesn't make up for the heavyhandedness and total irrelevancy of the switch in the 90's. I guess I just find the whole idea of playing politics with sports nicknames more than a bit silly.
------------------------------------------
Abe Pollin thought "Bullets" was in bad taste given what was going on the DC in the late 80's and early 90's. And he was right.
And that's what these issues mostly come down to: taste and class.
I'd say it mostly comes down to a comically misplaced idea of when and where you have to draw the lines about such matters. The idea that naming your basketball team "Bullets" is going to cause one more round of even a cap pistol to be fired somewhere in Landover or Columbia Heights is just so ridiculous it's almost beyond parody. And I say this as a strong supporter of gun control laws.
None of you are paying the least bit of attention to that spot, then, apparently. The kick line of the bit is "buy this car, so you can hand him down something he truly appreciates" or something close to that. The entire set up is that the father is athletically lacking and physically untalented, a trait he has handed down genetically and otherwise to his son, so he has bought this fantastic car that he will be able to hand down to his son later, when he comes of age to drive, which will make up for some of the genetic failure.
It's not subtle. It's not about "throwing like a girl" or being too PC to call throwing like a girl by that name. It's about telling people that the car in question is an heirloom quality product which might, one day, make your athletically ungifted son a little happier with you if you give it to him as a 16th birthday present.
As for throwing like a girl, studies have been done. If you throw with the ball interior to the elbow hinge, you throw like a girl.
It's a small change made in a simple and reasonable manner, all toward no end more complicated than the simple Bill and Ted model. Be excellent to each other. There are no losers here, just people treating each other with a touch more simple respect.
My argument would be that it is a really really small issue in which very very few people actually are offended and I don't feel inclined to ingore the many for 10 overly sensitive and/or with an agenda people. It isn't your business, it isn't your district, it isn't your state so I don't give a fig about what you want because you like everyone else can simply choose not to buy the product or vote for people who will change the name.
But treating people nicely is such a drag! It's much more fun to make snarky comments and pretend like the world is ending.
In any event I think it is OK to be offended at things one finds offensive. And also OK to ignore people being offended and going about your business. I do find it funny that the vitriol towards those who are "PC" is at least as strong as those who are "first order offended", but whatever. Eventually as a society we will find a balance where the worst offenders (looking at you Washington football team and you Cleveland Indians mascot) will go away and various groups will be less sensitive and not worry about the odd commercial (like most white males, who may find the stream of white dude is dork stuff annoying but not worth getting uptight over).
But most importantly I am proud and happy to be part of the ever strong "Liberal Smear Machine" - High Five!
This and the point mentioned in #88 are what I find bizarre. You have a few people saying that the Braves' hat is a little tasteless and maybe the team shouldn't wear it, and suddenly it's a CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS!
Changing the hat is a small, simple gesture that (1) doesn't hurt anyone but (2) shows you're actually paying attention to someone other than yourself.
I have no right to decide what offends you. If that makes me PC, then I so be it.
I have no right to decide what offends you. If that makes me PC, then I so be it.
Yet the people crying for it to be changed don't have pay attention anyone other than themselves? How about everybody just worry about themselves and those close to them? Don't like the hat then don't buy it or watch the Braves. Problem solved.
This is nothing close to what Yearrgh or I said, however, or why we don't think the renaming is similarly ridiculous.
This is so silly that it shouldn't even require a response. You moan about a couple instances of white males getting targeted as a joke, while dismissing the millions of images of white males as the good father, or the businessman, or the leader of the meeting, and so on and so forth. There have been billions (probably trillions) of dollars in advertising over the years with white men as every positive stereotype and your so concerned with playing the victim that you can't even recognize that. Who saves the damsel in distress in tv/movies? Who plays the financial advisor? Who plays the good father on the sitcom? This is the equivalent of Derek Jeter complaining about the one time they made a negative story about his gift baskets and his giant house.
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