What If?

I just heard an excerpt from Bob Costas' NFL halftime sermonette about the Washington Redskins and how offensive their name is. I'd like to propose a "What If?"

What do YOU think the media would be covering IF the Washington Redskins board came out and said that they wanted to change the name because they wanted to be associated with WINNERS? Victors? Hmmm. We all know that the indigenous Native American peoples were the losers to the Europeans who came over and settled in the New World. How well would THAT go over? Like a sack of rocks, right? The Politically Correct Police (PCP) and Mainstream Media (MSM) would STILL be on their bandwagon about how racist, how offensive, how terrible to target a people group and label them as losers.

Personally, I don't watch NFL. If it isn't SEC, it just isn't football. After they leave Auburn, I pretty much forget about them, though I've kind of kept up with Cam Newton, I've never (not once) watched a Carolina Panthers game. Truth.  I think it is reprehensible that the PCP in the MSM (and even our President) wants the Redskins to change their name. But let's not forget this is the same moronic mentality that fired an ESPN sportscaster for using the phrase "chink in the armor" when speaking of the weakest link of Jeremy Lin in the NBA. Unfathomable idiocy. Didn't think anything could top that until that OTHER ESPN sportscaster called the NFL team the "WASHINGTONS".  Let's just get it over with and change the name to the Washington Thin Skins. I'm good with that.  Call it what it is: a bunch of liberal, white, Europeans who are still hellbent on keeping the indigenous Native American peoples on the Reservation.

Fact is, the PEOPLE who are trying to CHANGE the name have NO CONNECTION to the Native American people. At all. Rather than seeing it as a TRIBUTE to the People, they want to eradicate it and that the Native American peoples have a GREAT heritage as well as an ANCIENT claim to this land we call home. Guess we'll have to change the name of OKLAHOMA next, since it is a CHOCTAW (remember it was the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek people from Alabama and other southeastern states, who were sent on the Trail of Tears to a RESERVATION in the WEST...Andrew Jackson was an EVIL, evil, man.) word that means RED PEOPLE. Oklahoma was established as one giant reservation for the Native American tribes from the Southeast. If you want to see what a HUNDRED AND FIFTY (or so) YEARS OF GOVERNMENT DEPENDENCY does to a people, visit a reservation. Speaking of, I suppose we shall have to rename the state of Oklahoma since the very name is Choctaw "okla" meaning "red" and "humma" meaning "people." AND let's not forget that the Red Mesa High School will have to change their name as well....even though it is a Native American school on a Native American Reservation. We can't play favorites, can we?

As someone who is of Irish-Cherokee lineage, and whose great-great-great-I-don't-know-how-many-times-removed-Grandfather was the first recorded white man (European) on Sand Mountain, who married a Cherokee woman, I have always appreciated that Irish-Cherokee genetic heritage. When I first went to Elementary school the mascot was The Lakeview Warriors; Middle school was The Westside Braves, Jr. High School, back to Lakeview Warriors, and I graduated from a High School whose mascot was a Bison, The Thundering Herd.  In MY OPINION you just can't get any more AMERICAN than THOSE mascots! How SAD and HOW TRAGIC it is for those of us who are descended from that part of our history, to have people who want to do away with it. Changing the name of a football team doesn't change the HISTORY, not right away. Eventually people will forget that the REDSKINS were so named, not because of the COLOR of their SKIN, but because of the COLOR OF THEIR WAR PAINT. There were two groups of Creek Indians in Central Alabama, one of which was called The Red Sticks, because of the COLOR OF THEIR WAR CLUBS. I just don't get this whole re-writing, erasing, of history. We, as descendents should want to know it: the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's the only way we have a real perception of where we've come from, how we got to where we are, and what kind of people we want to be in the future. The NFL team name was changed to the "Redskins" IN HONOR OF then-coach Lone Star Dietz, an American Sioux.

It is a good thing that America was named for the first name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, rather than his LAST name. Poor Columbus. Today is Columbus Day and in Elmore County, kids have to go to school. Once Upon A Time, This was a National Holiday and kids had a day off from school. Not any more. I bet kids don't even study about Columbus today.  Still, Jed told me his teacher told him that Columbus slept with Queen Isabella and that was how he became the recipient of the funding for his voyage. Jed asked me if that was true. Uhhh....my reply? "Not that we know of. Considering that Columbus was somewhat of a religious fanatic, it is doubtful, but still. It's been 521 years and unless there is recorded documentation from personal writings, I'd say NO!" As to Queen Isabella, her vision of discovery was sometimes obscured by events and people around her. Primarily the Catholic church as well as the all absorbing war with the Moors (Muslims). It was her war! At times she was the directing mind at the front. She even camped with the troops and participated in all their excitements. When not in the field with the army, she was collecting reinforcements and provisions and sending them forward. It wasn't until the end of the great war that she even gave Columbus an audience. It was his promise of funds to recover the Holy Sepulcher (from the Turks, aka Muslims) that touched Queen Isabella, but it was his impassioned speech about the dark paganism hanging over the lands and "the conversion of the benighted heathen was with Isabella by far the most potent argument."

This is my public service announcement for today. You can thank me later, as I'll be posting telepathically for the remainder of the day.

Later days,

Starr