Recently
there have been some stirrings of controversy—regarding ethnic
sensibilities—when it comes to the name Washington Redskins.
The
first part, "Washington" ,
is apparently OKAY since the nation’s capital city was named for the
Revolutionary War Hero AND First President of the United
States . So where’s the
problem? With “Redskins” of course!
The
question arises: does this “old-fashioned term” convey a negative stereotype
about Native Americans? There are public calls for the team owner to
change the name for that very reason but I believe there is a better
solution. Instead of changing this team’s name we should consider adding
the word “skins” to
describe other
groups.
Let
me indicate how this might look in practice.
George
Washington—the patron saint of the District
of Columbia and
hence the etymological driving force behind the team’s name--was Caucasian,
don’t you see? So instead of names like “Redskins”
being perceived as an insult, we start using the color of skin for everyone else.
George
Washington becomes identified as a White-Skin. That will give us
White-Skins, Black-Skins, and Yellow-Skins for starters. This would
equalize the playing field and is far easier than renaming a team and ruining
all that merchandise.
Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes known as that great Black-Skin leader and Amy
Tan as that great Yellow-Skin author. Sure, it might sting a little at
first but I know my countrymen can get used to anything if they try!
I
do not see how anyone could object to such a simple yet elegant system of
correctly identifying people by color. We no longer would have to spell
out Caucasian, Negro, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American and
all them other hyphenated people; we just say White-skin, Black-skin,
Yellow-skin, and Brown-skin. It’s easy, fast, and accurate.
Now
some of you may object and say wait a minute: what about mixed marriages and
the children? No problem! You just add the right number of colors.
You get White-Black-Skin for someone whose parents are both white and
black.
Another
example is Yellow-White-Skin which means kids who are Asian and White.
You see how simple it is!
I
admit there are some people who have more
than two lines of racial
ancestry but this new system is so excellent it can easily expand to include
them, too! For a person of very mixed-up ancestry--three or more
races--we can say White-Black-Yellow-Skin to indicate parents (and grandparents’)
diverse origins.
We
could even create shorter terms--such as Hybrid-Skin or maybe Mestizo-Skin to
deal with multiple ethnicities--although I’m not sure the general public is
ready for a foray into such advanced thinking.
The
length of the name is a concern, granted, if we had to spell out all these
terms. By introducing abbreviations we overcome this picky objection. White-Black-skin becomes simply W-B Skin for
President Obama. That way it’s not a secret who is a Hybrid Mestizo and
who is not an H-M but a PS Pure-Skin.
If
we try “Brown” we run into the “B” problem since we already have B for “Black”
and if we use “Red” we run into the “R” problem since we already have R for
“Red”.
The
solution turns out to be as simple as it is brilliant!
Doubling
up letters solves it easily. We use “BL” for “Black” and “BR” for
“Brown”. Get it? Even though some
BL Black people are actually BR Brown in skin tone we shall consider them BL Black
if their ancestors came from Africa.
That
leaves us free to use BR Brown for Hispanics even though many Hispanic-Americans
are really a mix of R Redskins and W Whites and
sometimes even BL Black.
Even
with abbreviations, their story requires too many letters like H-M or BR-R-W-BL
so we must abbreviate the abbreviations and shorten this racial multiplicity to
simply BR Brown and we’re done. If BR
Brown marries BL, R, W, or Y then we combine letters accordingly.
If
we have to, we can use “R-BL-BR” for very dark-skinned Hispanic Mestizos with
triple ancestry: that should take care of it right smartly.
I
am tempted to suggest “H” for Hispanic instead of BR but that runs into a
conflict since “H” is already being considered for “Hybrid”. I
suppose we could use “HI” for Hispanic and “HY” for Hybrid to distinguish them:
that might work! (except people in Hawaii may wonder if "HI" means
the person was born in Hawaii—aloha!)
I
think this new system will make everybody happy. It totally defuses the looming crisis over the
accursed racial insult in the name “Red-Skins”
because now fans can keep liking that name and not feel awful about it . . .
because they know that in the stands there are plenty of White-Skins,
Black-Skins, Yellow-Skins, and Hybrid-Skins, too: a whole alphabet of fans!!
Everybody’s
a “Skin”--nobody loses and everybody wins!
Sure,
I get it, if the team were called the Washington N-Word (“Negro-Skins”) the
outcry would be huge but that’s only because there are maybe 40 or 50 million
Black-Skins and only about . . . well I don’t know how many Redskins are left but it
can’t be very many.
If
ignoring Native Redskins’ feelings is too cruel,
I offer my original solution: let’s use skin color designations for everyone to make things equal!
Surely
every American, from President Obama down to the most ordinary citizen, would
be cool with this solution. Who could object? Each American is
being treated exactly the same with letters-for-colors and in the same fair
manner as everyone else.
This
will work if we only give it a chance!
One
last objection to this name change plan might be: what happened to the notion
of American in which we recognize that America is a nation of diversity and it is
this very diversity which gives us our strength?
·
That we should spend less time on identifying
people by race and color and more time appreciating those fundamental strengths
of human character found among all peoples across the entire rainbow spectrum
of skin hues?
·
That we should work together to nurture those
bedrock principles of democratic thought that gave birth to our nation and
which is the secret of our true greatness?
·
That we should continue to advance those
wondrous ideas of color-blind constitutional equal fairness so that we may come
together as one people?
·
That we should encourage everyone to think of
themselves as human beings with
fundamental human rights belonging to the same family of mankind?
·
That, whatever other reasons we may have for
pride in enjoying our distinctive cultural heritage, we should acknowledge that
our ethnic group shares with other peoples of this world similar traits of
character and moral vigor?
If
we care about one, we care about all. If our Native American Brothers and
Sisters feel the name “Washington Redskins” is a
derisive insult that gives them pain, this by itself should be enough to give
us serious pause.
In
the words of the great Sioux people: “Mitakuye
oyasin--We are all related!”
We
thinking, feeling, caring Americans alive today are far more aware of the great
spiritual wisdom of Native Americans
than any earlier generation preceding us.
We
are light years ahead of that first wave of insatiable land-grabbing,
culture-destroying European-American colonizers with their incessant and
excessive displays of murderous intolerance and unabashed bigotry. It
was they who invented derogatory terms like “Redskins” and “Savages” to cover
up their own crimes and shame.
We
today are in a position to open our minds, our eyes, our ears, and our hearts
in a way that those earlier generations could not conceive.
Are
we to remain sensitive only to our own needs and ignore those of others?
Americans can and must set the highest standards of ethical
compassion for all peoples if they wish to maintain fidelity to America's
founding principles:
the very principles which allow our nation to serve as a
beacon light of hope and liberty to all the world’s peoples--including our own Native Americans!
Prof. Rosenberg
