May 22, 2016

"I think the hoo-ha about it is crazy. To me, it’s kind of like an honor. I think we should be proud to have a team named after us."

"I don’t have a problem with that word. I don’t relate it to the color of your skin. We call black people ‘black people.’ We call European people ‘white people.’"

From "In their words: 12 Native Americans talk about the furor over the Redskins name" in The Washington Post, following a Washington Post poll that showed 9 out of 10 Native Americans don't have a problem with the football team name Washington Redskins.

The NYT also has an article following up on the WaPo poll results: "A Heated Linguistic Debate: What Makes ‘Redskins’ a Slur?" The title really gives away the elitism of the NYT viewpoint, doesn't it? Excerpt:
Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley, who served as an expert for Native Americans petitioning to have the federal government cancel the Washington Redskins organization’s trademark registration, said the term was a qualified form of a reclaimed epithet. Some scholastic teams in Indian country have nicknames that include Redskins and Braves, he said, sort of as a way to say, “If you want redskin savages, then we’ll give you redskin savages.”

“It’s used in those schools in that reclaimed way,” Mr. Nunberg said. “But that doesn’t license its use by third parties.”

The term has come to be associated with hostility, and savagery, and a mélange of popular culture stereotypes that include “F Troop” and “Davy Crockett,” removed in some way from the fact of sustained genocide and mistreatment.
I like getting some scholarly analysis, but when you're examining American culture and find yourself going back to “F Troop” and “Davy Crockett" to exemplify the cultural stereotype, you should be questioning your data. "Davy Crockett" was on TV from 1954-1955.



That was long ago. I'm old enough to remember watching it, but don't remember how the Native American characters were portrayed. The white people seem like absurd stereotypes though, including Buddy Ebsen, a decade before he became America's #1 hillbilly. Okay, here. That's a scene with Native American characters.

"F Troop" is a more recent artifact of American cultural history. It was on the air from 1965 to 1967. That was half a century ago. The Native American were — as Brent Cox put it in "The Joys And Derangement Of 'F Troop'" — "New York Italian and Jewish comics... doing... standard Borscht Belt schtick":



I'd be embarrassed to write what I thought was a serious article about "What Makes 'Redskins' a Slur" and to use “F Troop” and “Davy Crockett" and only “F Troop” and “Davy Crockett" as my references for anything currently living in American popular culture. The NYT is choosing present its views in the pose of elite opinion, and then it does nothing to earn respect as a purveyor of scholarly analysis. That's embarrassing. And it's beyond embarrassing when it's part of a sustained attack on someone else's business, as it is here.

94 comments:

MisterBuddwing said...

"Hakawi" was, of course, a bowdlerized version of the old joke about the "Fakawi Indians," as in, "Where the Fakawi?"

As for "F Troop's" Hakawi, I didn't find them particularly offensive, because the show seemed to be making the point that the Hakawi were as inept at being Native Americans as the F Troopers were at being soldiers.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Its offensive because we say it is offensive, now shut-up peasants.

We are looking at the same mindset that finds using the names of Native American tribes as the names of army helicopters offensive as well. Even though Native American shamans perform ceremonies to bless the helicopters.

They have no understanding of the warrior spirit at all.

Dan in Philly said...

The team was established in 1932. It's fair to examine the culture which lead to the team mascot and nickname. I imagine the reason they went back to the 50s and 60s is due to the fact there's simply more preserved stuff to choose from, and the fact the culture then is much closer to the 30s than now.

The Bergall said...

Odd, only "white liberals" are offended..........another forced narrative.

traditionalguy said...

The Scots-Irish settlers like Crockett usually encountered Indians as raiding bands of kidnappers and murderers. They were as proudly savage as they could be, and enjoyed every moment of the screams of the scalped men and the wails of their captured women and children.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

@Daniel Richwine

Nobody names their team after something they have derogatory feelings for. You name your team for something you admire.

So clearly, when they named the team the Redskins they did not think that was a derogatory term. The question is, is the term offensive now?

Apparently the vast majority of Native Americans say not. So why should the opinions of the editors of the Washington Post be privileged over theirs?

Seems kind of racist to me.

MayBee said...

We must assume Native Americans are simply too simple-minded to be offended. Just like Donald Trump's bathing suit model.

rhhardin said...

Everything about indian culture is risible.

Redskins as a football team name is a move to save what's positive.

rhhardin said...

Derbyshire proposes, for portraits on currency, heroic enemies who were wiped out in creating America, e.g. Sitting Bull.

A hail fellow well met thing.

MAJMike said...

As I recall, the Hakawi spent most of their time out-witting the soldiers of F Troop. Seemed more a slam of the white soldiers than a slur of Amerindians.

rhhardin said...

Negro to colored to black to african american is a series of moves to escape the negative connotations that develop on each successive one. Someday the problem will be noticed and fixed.

buwaya said...

Speaking as a fascinated foreigner:
There is no longer a popular idea of the real Indians as they were when the wars were going on. Reading contemporary material, such as Francis Parkmans books (and DO read those; narrative history is literature, and that is some of your best), the Indians were considered serious, capable opponents, and almost supernaturally fearsome. The casualty rates among settlers were often terrific. Hundreds of years of terrible wars leave a mark, and legends.
Western movies of the golden age are often more realistic than later ones (dances with wolves) but absolutely don't do justice to the situation.
The modern sensibility is to see these people as put-upon pets, it seems, not the deadly enemies that they once were.
It also seems to me that their contemporaries, such as Parkman, were far more respectful of them.
I think it's because US "high" culture is now dominated by peoples who weren't part of those peoples who actually faced the Indians, and to whom the legends are meaningless.

buwaya said...

Risible?
The white man needed odds of 2:1, or usually better, to defeat them in battle.

Virgil Hilts said...

I agree with Ron Winkleheimer. American teams are named after warriors not losers - hence the lack of teams named the "Frenchmen" or the "Custers" or "Brigade 2506"

mezzrow said...

Think of a sportswriter of the 1930's. Think of his wife.

Think of a sports writer/broadcaster of today. What was his wife's major? She's the last person he talks to every day.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

90% of sportswriters and sports broadcasters will tell you that the Washington Redskins offends them personally if the answer is on the record.

If you don't agree, you must be a bigot. However, the sportscasters and sportswriters don't hold their disagreement with real native Americans against those native Americans, as their views are uniquely authentic. Claro?

That Larry Storch. What a cutup.

Bob Boyd said...

One WAPO editor, Robert McCartney, says about the controversy: From where the sun now stands I will write no more forever.

But the editorial board is not going to scratch off this bumper sticker.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-slur-is-a-slur-change-the-washington-football-teams-name/2016/05/21/2476f522-1eba-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html

rcocean said...

What could be more absurd then a bunch of white people - most of whom don't even know a native American - sitting around yakking about whether they are "offended" by a NFL Nickname?

I often wonder what the REAL motivation is. The Bolsheviks weren't motivated by a love of the peasants/workers and I don't think the SJW are motivated by a love of racial minorities.

rcocean said...

Sontag said "The white race is the cancer of human history" an odd comment given that she herself was white. I wonder how we're supposed to "decode" her statement.

ganderson said...

More fire brought down on the heads of the dirt people by the elite media.
Dunno about the real Crockett, as he was so larded with myth even while he was alive, but I seem to recall that Disney's Crockett opposed Jackson's removal policy, a policy BTW that went back to the administration of the sainted Thomas Jefferson.
Most of what people "know" about Indians just ain't so- and they've been marinaded in it by the schools and the media There might be a book to be written about the portrayal of Indians by the popular press- not by me, though- wayy too lazy (is Brian Moore still alive?) But-in the 40's and 50's Indians were often treated sympathetically in movies, TV and radio: see John Ford's Fort Apache, or episodes of the radio dramas Fort Laramie and Gunsmoke. Starting in the 70's, Indians were portrayed as traveling bands of St. Francis of Assisi impersonators- thanks, Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Costner! And Althouse- you are correct, how lame is it to use Davy Crockett and F Troop as your frames of reference?
In an encouraging note- I was at the Frozen Four this April- it seemed as if the entire state of North Dakota was there to cheer on the err.. Fighting Hawks, the name the NCAA crammed down the throats of the NoDak faithful. However I saw NO Fighting Hawks paraphernalia, but lots and lots of Indian heads and other Fighting Sioux gear. Oh well I suppose as a next step Sheldon Whitehouse could introduce a bill authorizing the FBI to go door to door confiscating Fighting Sioux hockey sweaters. The NoDaks are the very quintessence of dirt people after all. Let's get 'em boys!

Roger Sweeny said...

"It makes me feel good to call it a slur (I'm so much better than those other white people) so it's a slur."

rcocean said...

Hollywood should apologize to the Native Americans for casting Burt Lancaster, Jeff Chandler, and Chuck Connors as "Indians".

Fernandinande said...

A Heated Linguistic Debate

Linquist all you want, NYT dweebs, it's really stupid to think that teams would name themselves after something they hated or disliked - The Washington Tapeworms - and not something they admired.

Wilbur said...

All of the Germans on Hogan's Heroes were Jews. Except Helga.

The sports department is usually the most hard-lined liberal departent on any newspaper.

F Troop was, and remains, funny. In small doses. Like Hogan's Heroes.

Bill R said...

There's a GPS/Mapping company now that specializes in marine applications. It's call "Fugawi".




Michael K said...

The "genocide" of Amerindians, as they are referred to in serious anthropology literature was mostly the fact that they had been isolated from Ole World diseases for 10,000 years. There were all sorts of genetic factors that made the collision of two populations after Columbus so lethal to the Amerindian one. Smallpox had evolved in the Old World since the separation of the populations, along with measles and malaria. The Amerindians had a 90% fatality rate from smallpox while the Europeans had about a 20% rate. Spanish explorers found empty villages in the Southwest parts of what is now the US when they first arrived. Smallpox had spread faster that they did. The same happened with measles.

Malaria and other tropical diseases kept whites out of subSaharan Africa until this century with the exception of temperate South Africa. The slaver traders remained on islands offshore while Arab and native slavers transported their captives to the islands for sale.

ganderson said...

And one more (or Moore) thing. Brian Moore's novel Black Robe, which was made into a fine movie by Bruce Beresford manages to portray woodland Indian culture in all its savagery, while still treating the Indians sympathetically.

ganderson said...

Wilbur- Hogan's Heroes still cracks me up!

Crimso said...

"Nobody names their team after something they have derogatory feelings for. You name your team for something you admire."

You're totally wrong in this case. If you read the official history of the Washington Redskins, you'll find an entire chapter on the original naming of the team. It was a bitterly divisive issue, with "Redskins" prevailing (obviously) but "Douchebags" (apt, both then and now) having a lot of support.

Crimso said...

'Sontag said "The white race is the cancer of human history" an odd comment given that she herself was white. I wonder how we're supposed to "decode" her statement.'

Overall, your best chance of surviving a cancer is if they can cut it out of you.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Fighting Sioux

How can that be considered derogatory? It must take several years of intense "education" to come to that conclusion.

David Begley said...

This story shows how whacked out and out of touch liberal elites are. Just like this bathroom thing.

It also shows a split in the Dem party. Natives vote Dem in NE and SD.

I still refer to Marquette as the Warriors. Way better than the Golden Eagles. At least they kept the best uniforms in college basketball.

Fernandinande said...

buwaya puti said...
Reading contemporary material, such as Francis Parkmans books


Check out Thwaite's collection, "Early Western Travels". 30-some volumes.

I just finished a(n) "historical novel" by anthropologists Gear & Gear, about the Iroquois - two souls per person - around 1400AD, selected semi-randomly at the library. I was concerned it might be PC, trading beads and loving nature stuff, but quite the opposite: cooling climate(!) created food shortages resulting in continual warfare, kidnapping children, torture, slavery, cannibalism, etc. Not unlike the prehistoric Amerindians in the Colorado Plateau area.

ganderson said...

The Warriors have the best unis in college lax, too

Hagar said...

And the Indians, when asked, prefer the term "American Indian" over "Native American."
But then, who cares what the Indians think.

rhhardin said...

Risible?
The white man needed odds of 2:1, or usually better, to defeat them in battle.


Firesticks helped too.

buwaya said...

A non-fiction horror story hiding as scholarship (I'm not knocking the scholarship) - "Man Corn", Turner
About large-scale cataclysmic cannibalism in the SouthWest, based on archaeology and forensic analysis of human remains. This could just as well be a book about zombie attacks.

rhhardin said...

Hoo-ha beginning a title is click bait.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Strange that they don't mention "Daniel Boone", where the best friend of the lead character is an Indian. (And there is a hilarious scene with Ed Ames on Johnny Carson.)

buwaya said...

Indians had firesticks too, and often used them better.

Hagar said...

rhardin above left out the term "Afro-American" which was in vogue for a short time until Jesse Jackson declared that this was incorrect and the proper designation should be "African-American," which immediately beame the standard to the point that reporters have been known to refer to the "African-American" populations in Africa in internatioal news.

rhhardin said...

Firsticks were negated by firewater.

buwaya said...

Interesting to compare the experience of colonial warfare around the world, 16th-19th centuries. Europeans fought everyone, using the European tactics developed from the revolutionary infantry-firepower tactics of Gonzalo de Cordoba that proved superior in nearly every case. Nearly.
India was conquered with these tactics, the Chinese were cowed, the Turks were beaten back, Africa (mostly) fell like a ripe fruit. Colonial empires were won by tiny armies that over and over proved massively superior to larger numbers of native warriors.
In just a few places did the natives make the Europeans adapt to THEM. One was here.

Rusty said...

Fernandinande @ 9:05

I think you'll like "1491"

Doug said...

To me, this crusade has always been about business. Snyder maybe anathema to many people, but the man paid millions upon millions for a team and a brand that had produced revenue for 80 years. Eighty years ago, eighty months ago, you never heard a peep about the name being offensive, but now, because some white SJWs think they have found a new target, Snyder should be forced - by local and federal government might if necessary - to give away that brand? Bullshit. Vanquish these troublemakers, shame them, and make an example of them in the eyes of other social freeloaders who might be tempted to pull such a mindless stunt. When Costas comes on the screen, I change the channel, and Christine Brennan saw the last of my patronage during the Augusta National campaign.

rhhardin said...

The indians adapted and moved into cigar stores, and then casinos.

Roughcoat said...

buwaya puti:

Read Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" for an accurate (and terrifying) depiction of Indian depredations and atrocities (in this case, by the Commanche and Apache) in the American southwest; and the equally savage response of whites, Spanish, and Mestizo settlers to those depredations and atrocities.

Francis Parkman was indeed a brilliant narrative writer.

Michael K is quite correct in pointing out the true cause and nature of the decline in the native population of America after first contact with European peoples. There was no genocide, no holocaust. The decline in population was due to disease (especially, in the case of Mesoamerica, respiratory disease): and so not so much due to disease actually killing people (although it did kill a lot of people) but due to the fact that the who died were not able to re-produce in sufficient numbers to maintain population replacement rates.

It is worth stating that diseases that originated in Asia--notably, bubonic plague and cholera--killed well untold numbers (in the millions) of Europeans. Or that the the bubonic plague was carried to Europe by Mongal invaders intent on conquering and colonizing Europe. Should we take Asians and Asia to task for propagating a disease-caused genocide of Europeans?

dreams said...

Liberals are so patronizing and kind of totalitarian too. Sportswriters are the worst.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Talk about your Cultural Appropriation! The right to be offended by team names such as "Redskins" and "Braves" belongs to Native Americans.

If I were a Native American (full disclosure I'm only a native american, lower case) I'd be offended by those Crackers appropriating my right to be offended.

Michael K said...

"Africa (mostly) fell like a ripe fruit."

Whites were unable to survive in subSaharan Africa until modern medical and public health practices dealt with diseases that the native population had already been adapted to by fierce evolutionary forces. That is why blacks have S hemoglobin and G6PD deficiency in such large numbers. The Duffy antigen on red cells is also missing. Mediterranean whites were also exposed to malaria in a less intense situation but still evolved Thalassemia as a defense.

The New World contributed Syphilis but that seems to be the only disease that was carried back by explorers.

buwaya said...

Whites were able to hold enclaves in sub-saharan Africa with the right policies. The Portuguese for instance held the interior of Angola and much of Mozambique with mestizos and acculturated natives long before "the scramble for Africa".

The Caribbean was just as deadly but the Europeans braved the death rate for economic reasons. The cost, if large numbers had to be sent as in the French and British armies of 1803-1814, was extreme. Over 100,000 dead soldiers and sailors in that period due to disease.

Malaria was universal. The British, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese had plenty in Asia. It's endemic in the Philippines, I had it.

Ann Althouse said...

"Hoo-ha beginning a title is click bait."

Ha ha. Guilty! What a great word! To an old person, like the quoted lady, it's a lively was to refer to a commotion. Other people hear vagina. You'll hear what you're listening for, and the vagina is always monologuing.

Ann Althouse said...

"Strange that they don't mention "Daniel Boone", where the best friend of the lead character is an Indian. "

And the Lone Ranger.

The truth is these shows taught the Baby Boomer generation about characters that we used in creative play. Ask around. I think you will find that most of us remember having a positive image of the Indian and we willingly took on the persona. For the female, there was Tiger Lily in Peter Pan and Princess Summer Winter Spring and Fall on Howdy Doody.

It was not unrelated to our later enthusiasm for hippiedom.

Today, all that would be frowned on as cultural appropriation and the kids nake do with the generic princess if female and the boys... I'm not sure what creative play characters they do these days, if any.

Bob Boyd said...

"I'm not sure what creative play characters they do these days, if any."

Generic queen.

buwaya said...

As for play-
When I was little my best pal was the Pakistani consuls son who lived across the street. We would play cowboys and Indians of course. I had to be the Indian, as he didn't like them.

rhhardin said...

You'll hear what you're listening for, and the vagina is always monologuing.

Empson's observation is that all the meanings always interact. There's a skill in organizing their performance into the hidden doctrine you want to put out. "The word itself says so."

Chris N said...

I suspect they allow a few males at the NPR compound, but they're monitored closely for proper feeling and commitment.

'We want you to like 'Sports,' Robert'

'I love 'Sports', Ms. Lozano-Schweizkopfer, it's a passion of mine.'

'Wonderful. So how's that Kayla Brupps piece coming?

'Well it turns out Kayla/Kyle didn't get PTSD just from watching the homecoming game, so the lawsuit was thrown out'

'Racism?''

'No evidence.'

'Sexism?'

'Nope. Probably just wanted attention.'

'Climate Change? Title IV? Bullying? Mental Health Awareness? Lack of funding by The Patriarchy?

Hagar said...

What about the Minnesota Vikings? And the Valley High Vikettes?
It's an outrage, I tell you! An outrage!

virgil xenophon said...

The reason American sports teams don't have any black figures as heroes/emblems is that, unlike the American Indian, we never had to fight them. The British did and, in respect of their martial prowess are proud to recognize that fact. There have been three Destroyers in the Royal Navy named HMS Zulu and one fighter squadron with its coat of Arms/chest patch consisting of a Zulu shield and crossed Zulu spears with the word "ZULUS" emblazoned at the bottom. During WW II three USAF fighter squadrons that were formed up in the New Guinea area took various images of Headhunters (one with bone thru the nose--VERY unPC) as their squadron symbol/patch because of their reputation as fierce warriors. (And, I might add, during an era when Jim Crow was very much alive and "racism" was far more wide-spread than today) One does not do battle to the death in the air or go down to the sea to ones death sailing in a ship named for something one disrespects. OBVIOUSLY it is quite the opposite. (The same obviously goes for names of sports-teams.) The first President of my alma mater was a guy named William Tecumseh Sherman. Does anyone REALLY THINK Sherman's parents gave him that name to disgrace him, or were they honoring a great Indian warrior and hoping those qualities would be associated with their son? COM' ON, MAN!!

virgil xenophon said...

And speaking of renaming things, does anyone know how many thousands of place names--cities, rivers, mountains, streams, etc--are named after Indian names. Are we to rename them all? e.g., Lake Huron, for example? Seattle Washing for another? Or how about entire States? Utah is named after the Ute Indian tribe. Goodby Utah. Oklahoma is an American Indian word that means lands of the "Red People." Good-by Okla also, I suppose. Or how about Illinois, which is the French word for the Illini Indians (Hence the Fighting Illini sports teams name) Shall we dispense with that state name as well? Or, in the classic case, the state of INDIANA and its Capitol Indianapolis?

The SJW types should get real and go pound sand.

Sammy Finkelman said...

F Troop was in reruns a lot later than 1967. The word "Redskin" is in the theme song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K4BvF_sb3Y

The end of the Civil War was near...and so it was planned he'd command F Troop.

Where Indian fights are colorful sights & nobody takes a lickin'
Where paleface and redskin both turn chicken. ..


I on;y remember or maybe some of the words, or maybe never really heard some.

The lyrics don't get you the abrupt emphasises in the song.

virgil xenophon said...

Fernandinande@9:05am/

Another good, no great read is "Dickon Among the Lenape Indians" by M.R. Harrington (1938) First read it in the fifth grade '54-'55.

virgil xenophon said...

PS to Fernandinade/

I noticed on Amazon that only the original 1938 version had "Indians" in its title. All other reprints had the title as simply "Dikon Among the Lenape." PC run amok also? I wonder..

Michael K said...

"Malaria was universal. The British, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese had plenty in Asia. It's endemic in the Philippines, I had it."

Oh yes, it is related to climate and to agriculture. The organism had not gotten to the western hemisphere until brought there in the blood of immigrants. The Aedes aegypti mosquito has made it to the western hemisphere in recent times and now carries yellow fever and Zika virus.

I assume there were some similar evolutionary effects in Asia but I haven't read about them.

Roughcoat said...

Re malaria -- Wait, wasn't malaria present in Italy in ancient times? E.g., weren't the Potine Marches hotbeds of malaria? At least two serious outbreaks of what historians believe to have been malaria took place in the Pontine Marshes regions as early as the 5th Century B.C.

rhhardin said...

Piper named a lot of airplanes after indians. Cherokee, Comanchee, Tri-pacer, Apache.

Comanche Voter said...

Ah Ms. Althouse. You make the mistaken assumption that The Gray Lady is capable of being embarassed. They are beyond shame.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...


"If I were a Native American (full disclosure I'm only a native american, lower case) I'd be offended by those Crackers appropriating my right to be offended."

Oh!

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
William said...

The racial slur is characterizing those who support the name "Redskins" as racist. The racial slur for whites is not paleface but racist.......The kind of people who used to believe in the purity and superiority of the white race now believe in the purity and superiority of those who consider the white race irredeemably racist. I know that they're mostly white but that just goes to show how truly pure and superior they are.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

My great-great-grandfather was scalped by Tri-Pacers. According to family legend.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

rcocean said...
Sontag said "The white race is the cancer of human history" an odd comment given that she herself was white. I wonder how we're supposed to "decode" her statement.

She didn't mean herself, or her tribe. D'you know what I mean?

Earnest Prole said...

Have a little sympathy for the well-meaning people at the New York Times: It falls to them to benevolently educate Native Americans that their beliefs about the word Redskins are ignorant and backward.

Ron said...

"Where Indian fights are colorful sights,
And nobody takes a lickin',
Where paleface and redskin both turn chicken."

Over to you, Senator Warren!

Bilwick said...

It should be remembered that in "Dave Crockett: Indian Fighter," the first episode of the Disney miniseries about Crockett, at the end, although he has fought the Creeks (in retaliation for the horrendous Creek massacre of settlers as Fort Mims AL), Crockett treats the Creek war-chief Red Stick with respect; and the stanza of the famous "Ballad of Davy Crockett" that ends the episode includes the lines "For the rest of his [Crockett's] life/He took the stand/that justice was due every redskin band."

The next episode "Davy Crockett Goes to Congress," shows Crockett doing just that: first sticking up for a Cherokee family that has been unjustly and illegally evicted from their homestead by a local white-trash bully; and then (more historically) Congressman Crockett standing up to President Jackson on behalf of the Indians about to be driven off their land on what would be "the Trail of Tears."

Anonymous said...

I'm amazed that the Post hasn't used "it's cultural appropriation!" as their fall-back position for more white hand-wringing/breast-beating.

rhhardin said...

You can be scalped by Tri-pacers. The propellor is too low to pull through properly without bending over, owing to the tricycle gear. On the other hand, the starter may work and save you the exercise.

JustOneMinute said...

Re the notion that teams are named after what we respect - the Harlem Globetrotters' hapless opponent is the Washington Generals. And as a poignant afterthought, Major League Baseball once had a team named the Washington Senators.

Dr. Isopod said...

With respect to the malaria question, it should be noted that there are multiple species of malaria with differing mortality rates. If I recall correctly, Plasmodium falciparum is the most lethal species and is found in central Africa, while Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae have a much larger geographic distribution and are quite debilitating, but less likely to be lethal.

Anopheles is the family of mosquitos that carry malaria. Aedes aegypti does not carry malaria, but does carry a number of viral diseases in addition to yellow fever and Zika.

It can be argued that the development of quinine extraction as a mass production technique opened up Africa to colonization in the 19th century. Once upon a time, the gin and tonic was a medical miracle.

Michael K said...

"wasn't malaria present in Italy in ancient times?"

Yes. and Thalassemia is the genetic mutation that provides some defense. Thalassemia Minor is the heterozygous form.

"With respect to the malaria question, it should be noted that there are multiple species of malaria with differing mortality rates. If I recall correctly, Plasmodium falciparum is the most lethal species and is found in central Africa, while Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae have a much larger geographic distribution and are quite debilitating, but less likely to be lethal."

The P. vivax form is thought to be older in evolutionary history and it is prevented by a loss of the Duffy antigen from red cells, a mutation in blacks.

The protein encoded by this gene is a glycosylated membrane protein and a non-specific receptor for several chemokines. The protein is also the receptor for the human malarial parasites Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium knowlesi. Polymorphisms in this gene are the basis of the Duffy blood group system.

Falciparum is far more lethal and is believed to be more recent.

The mutations of S hemoglobin and G6PD deficiency are thought to be more recent mutations, also in blacks.

Hemizygously-deficient males and homozygously-deficient females that have been infected with Plasmodium falciparum are less ill than non–G6PD-deficient individuals. The infection is usually not lethal in G6PD-deficient individuals (Tripathy and Reddy 2007), possibly because Plasmodium can proliferate less efficiently in their erythrocytes (Luzzatto et al. 1969; Roth et al. 1983). It is still uncertain whether this advantage applies only to hemizygous males and homozygous females. According to Guindo et al. (2007), heterozygous females suffer from the same morbidity and mortality of Plasmodium falciparum infection as do non-deficient patients. On the other hand, Mockenhaupt et al. (2003) found fewer Plasmodium falciparum infections in pregnant women with heterozygous G6PD deficiency.

Roughcoat said...

Well, okay then.

Anthony said...

They really need to change the name to something less offensive.

I suggest the Virginia Redskins.

JCCamp said...

I see that a panel (who appear to be Hispanics) on ESPN have decided that Ameican Indians voted that way in the poll because, yes, they don't know the history. Quite amazing. Another talking head then chimed in "Tyranny of the majority" as though that negated the 9% offended/90% don't care/1% no opinion.

ESPN. We want open locker rooms in professional sports. Mix up those NBA guys and cheerleaders. Otherwise, it's discrimination.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/bruce-bookter/2016/05/19/espn-panel-incensed-native-americans-too-dumb-be-offended

rcocean said...

Read Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" for an accurate (and terrifying) depiction of Indian depredations and atrocities

Dude, "Blood Meridian" isn't an accurate depiction of anything. It absurdly over-the-top in pretty much every way.

rcocean said...

"Should we take Asians and Asia to task for propagating a disease-caused genocide of Europeans?"

Good point except that defies the narrative. Remember only Whites have agency. Everyone else is an innocent victim.

rhhardin said...

I suggest the Virginia Redskins.

The vagina redskins would move the offended group around better.

Real American said...

if you need expert testimony to prove a particular word is a racist slur then it isn't a slur.

Bob Loblaw said...

Hahaha: "Mind your maw, she ain't gonna be none too happy without a man to boss around."

Forget the Indians. The feminists would go off the academic reservation over that.

Tom DeGisi said...

Does it matter that the Redskins specifically referred to Tammany, the most admired First Nation personage in early American history? http://www.footballnation.com/content/hail-to-the-redskins-nfl-must-save-name-image-legacy/25861/

Real American said...

most sportswriters, like other "journalists" come from journalism schools run by leftist, Marxists and other SJWs. they've been brainwashed like the rest of the media.

damikesc said...

This has always been the sports media trying to make an issue nobody but them cares about but them into something big.

Up there with the "controversy" of Augusta National not being open for women.

Sports media covers an inherently silly and homoerotic thing. Nobody takes their cues from the pathetic beta males who populate the field.

Malaria and other tropical diseases kept whites out of subSaharan Africa until this century with the exception of temperate South Africa. The slaver traders remained on islands offshore while Arab and native slavers transported their captives to the islands for sale.

And that reality killed my white guilt issue. If slavery was so bad, in what OTHER field is the seller of the horrible product absolved of all guilt and only the buyer guilty? Why are protests about the slave sellers so non-existent (and also why so little uproar over the continuing slavery issue in Africa)?

MayBee said...

Buwaya puti- thanks for the recommendation. Just ordered Oregon Trail and another.

Static Ping said...

I watched a lot of F Troop re-runs growing up. Any expert who brings up that show for a negative portrayal of Native Americans can be quickly and permanently classified as an idiot who requires no further attention. Everyone on that show is being shown in a negative light, mainly because it is a parody. Sgt. O'Rourke and Cpl. Agarn are corrupt and are using the Army's resources to to get themselves rich, Captain Parmenter is a very well-meaning but dim commanding officer who is only an officer since he was an accidental war hero, their bugler cannot play the bugle, their lookout is legally blind, their interpreter cannot speak English, and they accidentally knock down the lookout tower every other episode. In fact, Fort Courage is a dumping ground for the worst members of the army who are sent there in hopes that they desert. By contrast, the Hekawi are downright competent if not at all threatening. The only character on the show who is shown semi-positively is the female lead Wrangler Jane who, for some reason, is love crazy for the Captain, who seems to fluctuate between obliviousness to her feelings and trying avoid them. All combined together, this results in what is called "satire" and "comedy."

I suspect they do not have a /sarc tag in academic circles. This explains much.

JAORE said...

OK I stole this. But I can not remember where I got it.

The Washington Redskins should change the symbol to a potato.....


And tell the WaPo to pound sand, those vegetabigots...

Oh, wait, saved by the bureaucrats again! Per ESPN (2014):

'The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected another product with "Redskin" in the name, the latest sign that it might rule against the Washington Redskins in an ongoing trademark case.

The agency said Monday that "Washington Redskin Potatoes" would be considered disparaging because the product doesn't contain redskin potatoes and therefore would be associated with the football team.'

David Blaska said...

As I recall, the Indians (Native Americans, First People) on F Troop were of the Heckawi tribe. Like the Lost Tribe of Israel (which Mormons believe (I believe), the Heckawi were always lost. Their chief would ask, "Where the Heckawi?"