"Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race .... We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it."
-- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1963
I've told this story before, but a brief recounting is in order: I was there 30 years ago when the American Indian Movement leader Russell Means mau-maued the people of some little East Texas town. Like a lot of little municipalities, this town had a festival where, under color of celebrating "their" American Indian heritage, they sold each other fudge and craftsy trinkets.
What drew me there, as a young columnist looking for trouble, was their press release announcing that Means--a hard-case radical famous for his role in the occupation of Alcatraz and the Mayflower II as well as the 71-day standoff between AIM and federal agents at Wounded Knee, S.D., in 1973--would be delivering a keynote address at the festival. (What drew Means there, other than a considerable speaking fee, we might only guess.)
Anyway, I knew about Means. I suspected that whoever had booked him for this speaking gig knew very little about his background or politics. Maybe they had looked in some directory under "Indian, American" and found his name. I thought he might have something interesting to say to these folks. When the mayor of the little town greeted him, wearing his best Rotary luncheon suit and a war bonnet that flowed to his knees, Means regarded him with stony eyes. I couldn't have been the only one who felt nervous as Means sat on the dais in his signature buckskins, glaring at the townspeople as he endured the jocular Babbitry of the opening speeches.
When it was his turn, Means stood up, walked to the microphone and tilted it up to his lips. He panned his great head across the room, taking in 180 degrees of eager salt-of-the-earth faces (the overwhelming majority of which were irredeemably pale) and began his speech by dredging up from the bottom of his gut a basso profundo accusation: "Graaaave robbbbbbers ...."
Now you could argue that the people of that East Texas town didn't deserve that because they meant no harm. They were innocent in their ignorance, they didn't understand how their appropriation of cultural signifiers could be taken as offensive by someone acutely aware of the mistreatment of native peoples by their European occupiers. And, for his part, Means was acting opportunistically. His mission wasn't educational; I suspect he simply saw a chance to be paid for making his audience squirm.
But the sensibilities of well-meaning but ignorant people don't matter much when compared to centuries of racism and attempted genocide suffered by American Indians. Lots of damage is done by people who mean no harm, whose hearts are relatively pure. We don't always know when we are causing others pain.
Still, when we realize we are being needlessly hurtful, the only decent thing to do is to stop doing whatever it is that causes others distress. We should apologize and absorb the lesson. We should try to do better in the future. We should try to respect each other and understand that not everyone shares our particular view of the world.
It doesn't matter whether you think the word "redskins" is inoffensive--your idiosyncratic view of the word's etymology isn't important. You can argue, as some have, that it was actually coined by native peoples themselves (though even 19th-Century dictionaries recognized it as derogatory) as a purely descriptive term. You can point out that the Washington football team wears it proudly and without malice. You can rail against "political correctness," though more and more that sounds like the last refuge of the windbag incapable of self-editing.
But that doesn't change the reality of the situation. A great many people are disgusted by the use of a racial epithet. A lot more of us are a little ashamed of having simply accepted what's so obviously an ugly word without giving it much thought. There's an organized effort to change it. And this isn't something that has arisen in the past few months. People have recognized the inappropriate nature of the name for decades. It should have been changed long ago. It's an easy question.
Sure, when the Washington team joined the National Football League in 1932, obviously no one thought the name was beyond the pale, but we were rougher with one another then. Racial and ethnic slurs got thrown around in the early 20th Century--the deaf baseball player William Hoy was nicknamed Dummy; the Zulu Cannibal Giants, an all-black baseball team, barnstormed the country in 1934--they played their games in war paint and grass skirts. The Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo logo (perhaps the most offensive team logo still in use) was first introduced in 1947; the original design was reined in a bit in 1951.
"As a 17-year-old kid, it was the last thing on my mind that I would offend someone," Wahoo's creator Walter Goldbach told Cleveland Magazine in 2008. "For all the controversy, only one Native American has ever approached me to talk to me. We were at the Western Reserve Historical Society when a man walked by with his wife. He was a Native American. He looked at our display as he walked by our table. He came back about an hour later, and he said, 'I feel sorry that some of my brothers feel like they do, because I take no offense.'"
Goldbach's lack of enmity toward native people and his anecdote about his Indian admirer notwithstanding, times and attitudes change. Most of us understand that it's simply rude to employ words and perpetuate stereotypes that hurt other people's feelings. Most of us understand words have power and that their meanings evolve over time. Most of us have some shame.
One of the great American pastimes is taking offense. We do this reflexively, especially when we have a political point to make, and it makes fruitful discourse difficult. It is far easier to cling to some tenet or belief with religious fervor than it is to hear the other side of the argument. Since there are plenty of people who make a living supplying us with talking points, you can always find someone who will assure you that you are absolutely within your rights to feel offended.
But there's a difference between being confronted with a legal cultural practice you personally find alien or off-putting--maybe a neck tattoo or a mild public display of affection by a same-sex couple--and the trivialization and disparagement of an authentic native culture.
"Redskins" is a racial slur, and arguing that it's not is kind of stupid. I'm sorry if that offends you.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
www.blooddirtangels.com
Editorial on 06/29/2014