Daily Show Redskins segment

[gremcint]

http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/...the-daily-show

So here's a link to both a discussion of a recent daily show segment and the video of the segment itself at the bottom of the article. Basically it's a discussion people's response of being confronted with their defense of a racist team name.

They are asked if they would defend this stance to actual native americans and they say yes and they bring some native americans into the room.

There is a giant awkward silence, people later on said they felt threatened, one person cried.

Apparently later on the same native americans went to a redskins tailgating event and were physically threatened for being there.

Heck if you listen to the video one of the pro redskins says they should talk to those offended and yet has a problem when made to do just that. One says he would not have worn his redskins jacket.

I'm sorry this is so scattered but honestly I just find it really interesting how these people react when directly confronted with their own racism, how they backpedal and feel scared and some even react almost violently.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

For me, the deal with Native American's specifically in North America is they are such a small minority that people just expect to get away with this crap. Unless you try really hard, you're probably going to come across an African American or Asian, but most people have not met nor expect to meet a Native American.

People talk about genocide, but what's phenomenal about North America is the simultaneous erasure of Native American culture from pop consciousness. Really, Westerns may not have been great representation but they were representation of some kind and they have been replaced with nothing. I doubt most people have seen Smoke Signals and probably have no idea what a reservation looks like.

My guess is if Native Americans had ended up in pop culture as a lot of other minorities have, things would probably be better on this front. Outside of the horrendous writing in Star Trek Voyager though, they're just not seen in teen drams, court drams, cop drams, or really any drama where overt racism can be skewered. As such, we have a country where Redskin is actually an OK thing to say when most would feel awful using an equivilent phrase toward another race.

So I answered your scattered thoughts with my own.

[Greenday]

For me, the deal with Native American's specifically in North America is they are such a small minority that people just expect to get away with this crap.

Have you seen how black people, Mexicans, and Asians get treated? They aren't nearly as small in population as Native Americans and they get treated like shit. Of course the Native Americans get crapped on.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Except you're talking about other minorities in a story about Native Americans. That's why they get erased from the conversation and that's part of the problem. The Native American population is not the victim of abstracted racism towards others.

Doing that changes the subject and buries the issue in larger issue. Honestly, nothing gets fixed because between the people who don't want to change and the people who can exploit it to serve a larger agenda and thus drop it quickly, there really isn't the collective willpower to actually deal with the fact Redskins is a common sports team name despite the fact it really isn't that questionable that it is a derogatory term with extremely screwed up roots.