 |
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Oregon Ping List.
Posted on 11/04/2007 9:30:38 AM PST by jazusamo
Sunday, November 04, 2007
First they came for the Indians, and I . . .
It was 20 years ago that a principal at Portland's Cleveland High decided its "Indian" mascot would just not do in our sensitive age. Cleveland and Indians might go together like love and marriage but not in politically correct Portland.
I've thought of this long-ago kerfuffle over the past few weeks. I mean, you not only have Mayor Tom Potter's clunky bid to change Interstate Avenue to Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard. But you have state school officials weighing an advisory panel's recommendation to require certain schools to swap out their mascots for ones more attuned to the sensibilities of today's swell-set -- the Banks and Reedsport Braves; the Mohawk, Molalla, Roseburg and Scappoose Indians; the Dalles-Wahtonka Eagle Indians; the Rogue River Chieftains, and the Lebanon, North Douglas, Oakridge, Philomath, Siletz Valley and Warrenton Warriors.
As it happened some 20 years ago, Cleveland High changed its team name to the Warriors, though it's off the hook because it's a non-Indian warrior.
Yes, certain team names or images have been, or can be, out of line, and should be changed. There were the old Enterprise Savages. There are the Orofino Maniacs (after the state mental hospital located there), the Fighting Irish and Washington Redskins. But it's passing strange that Braves, Indians; Eagle Indians, Chieftains and Warriors are, ipso facto, offensive. They're just as easily terms of honor, which is usually the point of team names. As Josie Faris, an Amity student and Indian wrote to state officials, "When I walk into my school and see the Warrior head . . . I feel a certain pride. . . . I do not understand how some (other people) find our image, and therefore our school, offensive. . . ."
This student's words are more compelling than those Cynthia-Lou Coleman, a Portland State University professor and Indian, wrote in The Oregonian: "Although the intent of a school's symbol might be noble (to honor the warrior), the problem is that mascots are . . . likely to perpetuate the very stereotypes that high schools say they seek to avoid."
Even if they're majestic as all get out? By this standard, we'll be going after "Quakers" and "Crusaders" when the next self-selected crew protests.
Now, I'm not here to ventilate the old and trivial business of team names. What interests me in the team names and Chavez Boulevard flaps is the liberal intolerance on display. First, the folks in Portland and Salem who make a fetish of public involvement don't seem keen on hearing from the public when they disagree with the public'snotions. For the team-names advisory panel and Potter, the process was decision first, hear from affected parties second. We know what's best, and we're more than ready to tell everyone what to do.
It's not enough to discuss these issues, give everybody a say, raise consciousness and let the schools or neighborhoods decide. No, the state will require schools to change their names. (The state doesn't require schools to produce literate graduates, but it will require them to have the right mascot.) Portland's mayor will try to ram the name change through over the neighborhood's objection. And heaven help you if you don't share his views. You're, at best "insensitive" and, at worst, "racist."
When the neighborhoods in Potter's Portland objected to his Interstate plans, the man who talks up neighborhood involvement turned on them, lecturing them on their "negativity and disrespect." "I urge all Portlanders to learn more about this project and what it means to the Latino community," Potter wrote. "Take the time to listen -- and I mean really listen -- before making a fearful reaction. . . ."
In a later statement, Potter felt compelled to say that he didn't think name-change foes are racist.
Isn't that special? Opponents make clear they're happy to name something after Chavez. They just oppose renaming Interstate. And Potter favors them with another one of his smug and swollen discourses on proper civic comportment.
Then, when city councilors stepped in to clean up the mess he's made, Mayor Potter stormed out of the City Council meeting. His colleagues' talk of compromise was "inappropriate" and "disgusting" -- and an insult to the proponents of the name change.
In sum, he took his ball and went home.
Maybe he'll let another, appropriately named team use it. The Portland Big Babies, perhaps.
Ping!
Until a few years ago our local high scholl teams were The Pekin Chinks (Illinois). Now they are The Pekin Dragons. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Only thing he’s done in office I agree with.
The left goes after votes in every toilet.
It’s only offensive to the sorts of people who should have been drowned at birth.
“Maybe he’ll let another, appropriately named team use it. The Portland Big Babies, perhaps.”
Or, how about ‘The Raging Twits’?
The Raging Twits fits! lol
(I know, it's a little long)
Don't know what I mean?
Here, maybe this will help:
I suppose you'd have to call that "playing the percentages."
Er, no. That is the popular belief but the school's teams were so named before the mental hospital was built there. It is a bit of an unfortunate coincidence, though.
Portland — The (Commie) City of Empty Gestures
Just tell them Cesar Chavez vehemently opposed illegal aliens coming in and taking jobs from his union members. Therefore, Chavez was a racist and shouldn’t have a street named after him.
They could go with -
Pine Nuts
Rising Seas
Biofuels
Rain Clouds
Fight, team, FIGHT!
Crazy Oregon and political correctness!
|
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Oregon Ping List.
Whatever happened to that school that renamed their mascot the “Fightin’ Whities”?
They were so disappointed that white folks DIDN’T get upset about it.
What do you expect from the Soviet State of Oregon?? Not likely to be changed do to the cost of changing everybody’s address. Potter threw a major hissy fit and left the meeting when they voted against him.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.