Navajo Code Talker Says Washington Redskins Name Is Symbol Of Loyalty And Courage

[happyg]

http://weaselzippers.us/wp-content/uploads/navajotalkerap-550x309.jpg

Via Fox News:


A leader of the Navajo Code Talkers who appeared at a Washington Redskins home football game said Wednesday the team name is a symbol of loyalty and courage — not a slur as asserted by critics who want it changed.

Roy Hawthorne, 87, of Lupton, Ariz., was one of four Code Talkers honored for their service in World War II during the Monday night game against the San Francisco 49ers.

Hawthorne, vice president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association, said the group’s trip was paid for by the Redskins. The four men met briefly with team owner Dan Snyder but did not discuss the name, Hawthorne said.

Keep reading…

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/11/28/navajo-code-talker-says-washington-redskins-name-is-symbol-of-loyalty-and-courage/

[mountaineer]

Reviving this old thread to post a story about a high school lacrosse team in New York, many members of which are American Indian, that has a problem with an opposing school's "redskins" mascot.  Not all native Americans understand what the elderly Navajo man is saying, apparently.

Redskins' Lacrosse Rival Mulls Boycott Over Mascot
by Karen Robinson NEWS STAFF REPORTER C March 2015


As Lancaster debates whether the school district's sports teams should continue to remain the "Redskins," the lacrosse team at a neighboring school - where one out of 10 students is Native American - is considering boycotting an upcoming game between the schools.

"Just as the conversation is happening in Lancaster right now, we're having the same conversation," Akron Superintendent Kevin Shanley said Thursday. "The situation in Lancaster has raised an issue here."

The Akron school campus on Bloomingdale Avenue is just a few miles down the road from the Tonawanda Creek Reservation, home to the Tonawanda Band of Senecas. The district of about 1,500 students is 11 percent Native American and the majority of the members of the varsity boys lacrosse squad are Native American. Lancaster, with a student population of nearly 6,000, has about a dozen Native American students.

On Thursday, the members of the Akron Tigers lacrosse team met with Shanley and Stephen Dimitroff, the district's athletic director and assistant high school principal, to discuss the possibility of boycotting a nonleague game against Lancaster scheduled for March 31, which was to be hosted by Akron.

The move comes two days after a heated community forum at Lancaster High School over the "Redskins" name and the use of a Native American mascot. Lancaster district officials have been trying to quietly phase out the use of the nickname, which some consider a racial slur while supporters say it is part of the community's tradition and is not meant to be offensive.

Following Tuesday night's forum in Lancaster, which attracted wide interest, a few concerned parents of Akron students contacted the Akron school administration about the issue, and school administrators spoke with Native American leaders.

In an interview with The Buffalo News, Shanley said the parents' concern was: "If we play the game, does that mean we condone the name?"

"We're happy being the little, quiet place out here," but at the same time, there is a concern about the nickname issue, he said. "We're very proud that 11 percent of our student population is Native American."

Lancaster School Superintendent Michael J. Vallely said he's not surprised by the conversations in Akron. "We've been trying to educate ourselves on both sides of the issue, and with that understanding, we respect and honor their decision, whatever that would be," Vallely said of the upcoming boys' lacrosse game. "I'm not surprised it rippled into Akron. A lot of Native Americans feel very passionate about this. These are things that Lancaster has to understand - that these are examples of repercussions."
 
It's not the first time there's been an issue between the two districts over the Lancaster nickname. Within the last couple years, Native Americans in the Akron district took offense when a Redskins cheer was done to celebrate a victory by the Lancaster girls' lacrosse team. ...

Read the rest of the story

[DCPatriot]

Amen!   

[jmyrlefuller]

Lancaster should consider them forfeits and add them to the win record.

I mean, when was the last time anyone used the term “redskin” in common parlance, much less as a slur? At this point, the only thing it is used for is for sports teams. As a word, it is meaningless.

Case in point: why did Redskins stick as a team name if it was a slur, when the lexicon has hundreds of other slurs that have been used in history that were never used as sports team names? Washington Redskins founder George Preston Marshall, who was certainly no saint, knew the difference: he respected and employed natives, but truly hated blacks.

The fact is that the Seneca Nation of Indians (one of the two tribes up here in WNY), in November, elected (under questionable circumstances if you ask certain elements) an avowed segregationist who has been known to stir up trouble with non-natives.

[jmyrlefuller]

And then there's this…

Petition to change Buffalo's name
A petition filed on change.org calls on the City of Buffalo to change its name. The petitioner, identified in the post as Mark Beasley, a proclaimed member of the Navajo Nation, says the name "Buffalo" is, "offensive and racist." Beasley argues that the name promotes genocidal imagery towards Native Americans because American Bison, also known as buffalo, were slaughtered in order to move Natives off the land. (excerpt)

http://www.wgrz.com/story/news/2015/03/06/petition-to-change-the-name-of-buffalo-ny/24508581/

[mountaineer]

Let's change the name of Buffalo to Igloo, just because it's cold up there.  Then the natives in Alaska csn be offended, I suppose. 

[DCPatriot]

Let's change the name of Buffalo to Igloo, just because it's cold up there.  Then the natives in Alaska csn be offended, I suppose. 

Growing up there, I was taught that originally the French named the city "Belle Fleur"....beautiful flower. 

They must have meant the Pillsbury Mill on the waterfront.