October 17, 2013
More significantly, it is obvious that nickname choice reflects admirable traits, including edgy ones like Blue Devils (eight colleges). This includes estimable though not especially aggressive animals”10 schools” teams are Beavers.
Clearly, the need for an admirable trait affects groups unequally insofar as not all groups (or even animals) have much to offer and are thus excluded from the nickname menu. Yes, excluded! People are left out because their very name conjures up nothing admirable! It’s hard to envision a football team nicknamed Gang Bangers or Pimps and Hos.
This can change. Imagine a future military commission charged with finding more inclusive designations for its weapons and units, identities that would reflect American diversity more generally and most importantly, signify the military’s new mission of protecting the world’s most vulnerable. What would be the choice when the F-15 Screaming Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon (and, eventually, the F-22 Raptor) are retired from service? No doubt, times will have changed from the era when aggressive names were de rigueur. Now even environmental and women’s groups (perhaps gays, too) will be invited join the discussion and thankfully, there are hundreds of peaceful and environmentally friendly choices available. Sticking just to birds for fighter aircraft, candidates might include the F-50 Abbott’s Starling or the F-55 Andean Flamingo. What a wonderful way to publicize the plight of these nearly extinct birds! Meanwhile, what might replace shouts of “Geronimo“ (an Apache warrior) when paratroopers of the 101st Airborne jump? What about “Doctor Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.”?
It is easy to underestimate the significance of nicknames such as Redskins. These battles are really about willingness to stand one’s ground, to defend our culture against those who have made a political weapon out of getting offended. That hardly anybody is actually offended is irrelevant.
The left’s claims of offensiveness are really about securing the power to control the culture and the right to decide boundaries. It resembles an era when clerics stipulated which particular religious dogma offended God. This is what PC is all about, and it is no accident that the politically hypersensitive Obama was the first president to make “offensive” nicknames an issue worthy of national attention.
