Offensive Team Names

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

In all fairness, I don't see why Exeter should waste their time to engage with Native Americans. Exeter isn't in the USA, and doesn't owe the Native American people anything. It's exactly the same if Exeter has a rugby team called the Exeter Japies. While a few Saffas might find it extremely offensive, we are in an era where the majority couldn't care less of the historic connotation connected to the name, and to start a revolt regarding a name just isn't worth the squeeze.

Well then why are they using NA marketing? It's using their image so i would say it owes them a bit. It's not like Sharks, Wasps or Tigers it's a genuine culture.

 

[smartcooky]

So because Hollywood have stopped being ignorant it's okay for sports team to perpetuate the stereotype instead? I know that's not what you were saying exactly in response. But Hollywood getting better is not a reason for Cheifs being allowed to do it.

I was addressing j'nuh's comment about stereotyping in movies, but if you want to turn my comments into your own personal strawman, fill yer boots. I don't give a crap!

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

While a few Saffas might find it extremely offensive, we are in an era where the majority couldn't care less of the historic connotation connected to the name, and to start a revolt regarding a name just isn't worth the squeeze.

My experience tells me that we are in an era where more and more people, for whatever reason, care more and more about these things. In certain places they are most certainly not a minority.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Well then why are they using NA marketing? It's using their image so i would say it owes them a bit. It's not like Sharks, Wasps or Tigers it's a genuine culture.

Why are the Stormers using a lightning bolt on their emblem, shouldn't they owe The Greek god Zeus tribute?

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Why are the Stormers using a lightning bolt on their emblem, shouldn't they owe The Greek god Zeus tribute?

but that isn't a culture is it?

I mean hell let's bring back the black and white minstrels.

 

[TRF_heineken]

but that isn't a culture is it?

I mean hell let's bring back the black and white minstrels.

Okay then let's take something else.

Shouldn't the Otago Highlanders pay tribute the popular American TV series Highlander for having a man with a sword on their emblem that resembles the main character in the tv series??

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Okay then let's take something else.

Shouldn't the Otago Highlanders pay tribute the popular American TV series Highlander for having a man with a sword on their emblem that resembles the main character in the tv series??

Ermmm have you even seen the Highlander TV show?

The mascot looks nothing like him.

You're thinking of the film.

And the name and marketing makes a hell of a lot more sense than the Chiefs NA one.

 

[smartcooky]

My experience tells me that we are in an era where more and more people, for whatever reason, care more and more about these things. In certain places they are most certainly not a minority.

I doubt it. IMO, they make up roughly the same percentage of the population that they have always been... a tiny minority.

The difference now is that we are in the middle of "The Information Age" when any Social Justice Warrior, any believer in Fringe Lunacy , any exponent of Crank Magnetism and any other assorted moron with a computer and and internet connection, can have a say.

There aren't more and more of them at all, they are just a lot noisier now that the internet gives them a world wide soapbox to stand on.

 

[ncurd]

Popular American TV series?

Don't you mean awesome film with the French Christopher Lambert playing a Scottish Highlander with a French accent whilst Scottish Sean Connery played an Egyptian with a Spannish name and spoke in a Scottish accent and everyone only listened to Queen music? And there was only one film and no spin off series because everything else sucked balls?
There is Only One Highlander

Okay if it's offensive to anyone it's Scots but they love that sterotypical bullcrap about themselves. They put a statue of Mel Gibson up at Stirling Bridge for christ's sake.

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I doubt it. IMO, they make up roughly the same percentage of the population that they have always been... a tiny minority.

The difference now is that we are in the middle of "The Information Age" when any Social Justice Warrior, any believer in Fringe Lunacy , any exponent of Crank Magnetism and any other assorted moron with a computer and and internet connection, can have a say.

There aren't more and more of them at all, they are just a lot noisier now that the internet gives them a world wide soapbox to stand on.

Please don't use the word SJW it makes anyone using it sound moronic as does any generalisations like that on either side of a debate.

Are the percentages any different? I don't know history tells us that as a society moves to a more socially liberal culture over times.
I think the internet makes us more aware of opposing viewpoints than we once were and it could lead to more polarising arguements. People who would not associate with one another in thier normal lives are more likely to online this give illusion that there are more about or something is giving the other group a greater voice when in reality your just being exposed to it more.

However activism for a cause is not a new thing by any stretch.

As to left being more vocal go on any BBC news comments thread and see the vocality of out right out ****ing the left by miles despite being a minority (I mean those strongly affliated in the right) the true majority is middle ground who struggle to get heard. It's both sides of the coin being equally as guilty of it.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

I doubt it. IMO, they make up roughly the same percentage of the population that they have always been... a tiny minority.

The difference now is that we are in the middle of "The Information Age" when any Social Justice Warrior, any believer in Fringe Lunacy , any exponent of Crank Magnetism and any other assorted moron with a computer and and internet connection, can have a say.

I am not as optimistic as you are i'm afraid. Couple of things.
First, i don't have a problem with them having a saying. I can always chose to listen (or not) and disregard. What i do mind is when someone forces that view on others, which is what we are heading towards.
Second, the evidence i see around me strongly suggests that, either they are a very, very powerful minority (you'd need to explain why) or not really as small as you (among others) seem to suggest. They are, as much as i hate to admit it, dictating the agenda in a lot of ways: politics, corporate behavior, etc.
Companies and governments are spending money triple checking things before they publish anything in case, somewhere, someone might be offended. They have and/or are developing response protocols about how to react if someone, god forbid, finds something offensive. I kid you not.
I know this for a fact and i am not talking about tiny local shops/councils, but top tier multinationals in pretty much any industry you can think off and anything from municipal to national governments.
I cannot disclose the figures but you would **** your pants if you knew the money companies spend managing political correctness.

We live in an age where, in some jurisdictions, a boss telling his/her direct reports, and i quote: "this is not good, it's actually pretty bad (piece of work)" can be considered bullying legally speaking if said in front of other people. A similar trend is seen in the teachers/students dynamics. We are raising very, and i mean very thin skinned generation of passive aggressive narcissists. We are, as a society, rewarding victim-hood and punishing people with a stiff upper lip. Call me oldschool, but i'd rather have it the other way around.

I don't like where all this is heading but the trend is crystal clear.

 

[TRF_heineken]

I'm talking of this series:

http://www.imdb.com/***le/tt0103442/

It even had an awesome themesong in Princes of the Universe by Queen

 

[ncurd]

Which was written for the film Infact the entire It's a kind of magic album was. Seriously most people prefer to think only film existed and nobody made anything else Highlander related ever.

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Corporate behaviour is all about profits mate. If your a global brand you ahve to do market research otherwise it effects profits. They don't are about offending they care about bonus'. It's not about people saying you can't see say that bit the fact you won't sell to that group.

If your getting sued by people for calling theit work rubbish and it is. You lawyers and HR department are crap. Certainly in the UK workers rights are nothing in this regard despite protestations otherwise if a place wants to get rid of you they will.

Education I'd look for the cartoon that perpetuates that nonsense. But I think parents are just more aware that some teachers are **** at their jobs and failing their kids rather than it being the kids fault. Teachers should not be put on seem pedestal.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Corporate behaviour is all about profits mate. I

Preaching to the choir, but that is the "what". Dig a bit and venture into the "why". Profits have to do, more often than not, with the number of people and/or prices. If what we're talking about was as insignificant as some people suggest, companies and governments wouldn't give a **** about it. it wouldn't affect their profits. The fact that companies and governments react to this sort of ****e is a strong signal. So that leaves you 3 options, or a combination of them

1) Companies/governments are stupid as ****, everywhere
2) They are not as small a group as people suggest
3) Despite being small, they are powerful enough to dictate the agenda.

I'd discard #1 because i've seen this enough times and across the board to notice a trend. You can have a couple of stupid companies/governments, but this is pretty much a world wide phenomenon. I simply do not believe all governments and all companies are stupid. That's a hell of an assumption, one which i'd only buy after conclusive evidence. So basically, no.
So that leaves me 2) and 3). I'd be willing to accept a bit of 3) but i don't buy that 3) alone is enough. We're talking about keyboard warriors here. If they were just a handful of them this entire plot wouldn't work. They are a very loud group, but i don't think they are a small one by any measure.

If your getting sued by people for calling theit work rubbish and it is. You lawyers and HR department are crap.

They are not, that's the problem. The laws have become incredibly lenient. Take it from someone who's not an employer/entrepreneur/business owner. You have managers sweating their arses off whenever they have to give appraisals. You cannot make this stuff up.

Education I'd look for the cartoon that perpetuates that nonsense. But I think parents are just more aware that some teachers are **** at their jobs and failing their kids rather than it being the kids fault. Teachers should not be put on seem pedestal.

There might be a bit of that, but that's not the core issue. In my days when you didn't study because you went out playing you got an F (we called it a 1 or a 0). Now, it's never the kids/parent's fault. Either the kid is depressed, he is marginalized, he has special needs that are not being attended properly by teachers/faculty, he has ADHD, the lot. There is always a valid excuse. Accountability is non existent.

And i never put teachers in a pedestal (they'd laugh at the mere suggestion, trust me), but i understood the rules just like everyone else and knew they had final saying and i did not. I knew when to push the rules, when not to, and what were the risks of pushing them.
No matter how right i was and how wrong they were, they had a vote and i could only suggest. They knew it, i knew, everyone did. Sometimes it was unfair but so is life, that was the point.
Those were the rules and i believe those rules are incredibly important to understand as a child, as life, more often than not, works along the same lines. You need to play with the hand you're dealt and you can't have mommy, daddy or the psychologist bailing you out every time. Life doesn't work that way and we're kidding the younger generations by luring them into believing it actually does.

I don't wanna sound as if i am in favor of dog-eat-dog environment. I am not. I understand and acknowledge some people do have special needs and that those should be addressed. The problem i have is that what i see is that that is becoming the norm and not the exception. We are not defending a 30 kg from a 80 kg bully. We are presenting kids/families a plethora or low hanging fruit excuses for everyone to cherry pick from and they are exploiting the system.
But I digress.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

Oh Please spare me!!! That kind of Hollywood stereotyping of Native Americans died out with the demise of the "spaghetti western" in the early 1980s. The vast majority of movies made since those times have been positive and sympathetic to their plight and to the way they have been treated in the past.

If you really do want to see some movies that address the stereotypes (rather then using them), there are plenty to see...... Windtalkers, Dances with Wolves, Smoke Signals and especially Black Robe. But if you only ever see one movie about this issue, then make it Winter in the Blood. It deals with the issues facing reservational Native Americans in a harsh, uncompromising and ruthless manner, pulling no punches.

IMO, how people have been treated in the past is not a reason to go changing the name of a sports franchise. It might be a "hip" or trendy PC thing to do, but unless those actual people truly want it done (and as I said before, I would expect to see a major movement with a majority of the allegedly offended people in an outcry over the name) before I would support any such move. One professor pontificating from the lofty heights of her Ivory Tower does not make a good reason in my book; what it does is help to create a grievance industry. Take it from someone who lives in a country where the grievance industry is rife, and a small number of privileged members of a certain cultural grouping have their snouts firmly in the tough while the vast majority of the rest are disenfranchised.

actually we still have controversies about native american imagery and treatment in hollywood

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...diculous-six-native-americans-trailer/412705/

also native americans still largely live on reservations where alcoholism and suicide are higher than the national rates
so essentially the redskins, indians, and kc chiefs are using a subjugated population as mascots

i guess your are going to say something about how the natives choose to continue to live on reservations and that they just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps

which also leads me to believe that you also think blacks in america are lazy and that the continued decline of their neighborhoods has nothing to do with the redlining that limited their options throughout history

just because something ends doesn't mean its consequences do

 

[ncurd]

Preaching to the choir, but that is the "what". Dig a bit and venture into the "why". Profits have to do, more often than not, with the number of people and/or prices. If what we're talking about was as insignificant as some people suggest, companies and governments wouldn't give a **** about it. it wouldn't affect their profits. The fact that companies and governments react to this sort of ****e is a strong signal. So that leaves you 3 options, or a combination of them

1) Companies/governments are stupid as ****, everywhere
2) They are not as small a group as people suggest
3) Despite being small, they are powerful enough to dictate the agenda.

I'd discard #1 because i've seen this enough times and across the board to notice a trend. You can have a couple of stupid companies/governments, but this is pretty much a world wide phenomenon. I simply do not believe all governments and all companies are stupid. That's a hell of an assumption, one which i'd only buy after conclusive evidence. So basically, no.
So that leaves me 2) and 3). I'd be willing to accept a bit of 3) but i don't buy that 3) alone is enough. We're talking about keyboard warriors here. If they were just a handful of them this entire plot wouldn't work. They are a very loud group, but i don't think they are a small one by any measure.

My point is simply the reason they don't got out to offend is not because of "keyboard warriors" they do very little effect actual profit and gain. But you screw up on marketing campaign that legitimately offends a large proportion of people and it becomes a news story (I'm trying to think of an example and failing even though I know of them). If keyboard warriors had any true power Nestle would of died years ago.

They are not, that's the problem. The laws have become incredibly lenient. Take it from someone who's not an employer/entrepreneur/business owner. You have managers sweating their arses off whenever they have to give appraisals. You cannot make this stuff up.

Completely disagree I work in a corporate world nobody runs in fear of telling people what they think if they've done a poor job. From what I can tell well it comes appraisals they've always been toothless and will always continue to complete waste of everyone time and effort. Manager will give the people they like pay rises and bonus' and people they don't nothing regardless of actual ability or workload. Get stuck on a **** project that overruns because the managers underbid it's your fault and you'll be blamed. Workers are absolutely shafted in corporate culture and it's the same everywhere. Sure people won't get told their rubbish in a review but how they get removed is far more insidious now but it still happens.

There might be a bit of that, but that's not the core issue. In my days when you didn't study because you went out playing you got an F (we called it a 1 or a 0). Now, it's never the kids/parent's fault. Either the kid is depressed, he is marginalized, he has special needs that are not being attended properly by teachers/faculty, he has ADHD, the lot. There is always a valid excuse. Accountability is non existent.

And i never put teachers in a pedestal (they'd laugh at the mere suggestion, trust me), but i understood the rules just like everyone else and knew they had final saying and i did not. I knew when to push the rules, when not to, and what were the risks of pushing them.
No matter how right i was and how wrong they were, they had a vote and i could only suggest. They knew it, i knew, everyone did. Sometimes it was unfair but so is life, that was the point.
Those were the rules and i believe those rules are incredibly important to understand as a child, as life, more often than not, works along the same lines. You need to play with the hand you're dealt and you can't have mommy, daddy or the psychologist bailing you out every time. Life doesn't work that way and we're kidding the younger generations by luring them into believing it actually does.

I don't wanna sound as if i am in favor of dog-eat-dog environment. I am not. I understand and acknowledge some people do have special needs and that those should be addressed. The problem i have is that what i see is that that is becoming the norm and not the exception. We are not defending a 30 kg from a 80 kg bully. We are presenting kids/families a plethora or low hanging fruit excuses for everyone to cherry pick from and they are exploiting the system.
But I digress.

Schooling I think were more aware of individual's needs and we expect schools to work for them rather against them.
This about to get long winded so sorry. I'm quite bright don't get me wrong I'm not exceptional but learning comes extremely natural to me and high memory retention if something interests me. My sister is 2 years younger than me and was 1 year in school she suffers from a high level of dyslexia which stops her writing anything close to coherent sentences. My mother suffers from the same thing. When my mother was at school in the 60's and 70's the teachers despite her being diagnosed labelled her as thick and basically kicked her to the bottom of pile at school to be left to rot. Whilst my sister was at school we spotted very early on as a family the signs she had difficulties. The problem isn't that she was stupid if you spoke to her she was fine but her brain stopped her from being able to write it down. It took nearly 8 years to get her tested for something that was clear she had even then she still had some teachers who just treated her as thick which took further fighting with the school.
In the end she got help she needed, like in formal exams being able to dictate her answers as opposed to write them down. One incident was where an English teacher gleefully told my parents my sister wasn't reading books, my Dad then questioned why if this was such a problem why he had waited until parents evening to tell him. She's had a pretty successful career in childcare as an adult.
Now the other side of this is myself I barely did homework as a kid quite happy to get by with passing everything without really trying but not getting the top grades. Instead of blaming teachers my parents knew full well this was because of my idleness and put onus on me to sort myself out rather than the teachers.

I can understand why kids are getting stressed beyond all imagining the level of pressure to perform is way higher. As one teacher said to us the standard put on us was way higher he was expected to get something like 5 O-Level's and you were considered exceptionally smart. Now your expected to get top grades in all your GCSE's the workload on kids is far higher and syllabus' despite not changing a huge amount (the exams getting easier myth is a complete lie and is proven year in, year out) you expected to do a lot better than your parents ever were.
We as a society put way to much emphasis on exam grades and not skills.

ADHD was more a new thing when I was a school we certainly had kids who acted out whether this was because they had real issues or not I can't comment. However it's too easy to dismiss things as overprotective nonsense and not actually ask if we should giving people specialist help.

 

[ncurd]

What I really dislike though is retrospective self diagnosis of issues.

The amount of times I've heard someone (my mother in law is prime target for this sort of thing) say "Oh I must of had dyslexia that's why I was bad at school". I've heard the same over post natal depression (if she did she's suffered from it for 30+years and before giving birth to by all accounts).

That sort of thing diminishes people with diagnosed issues by professional, we had to fight to get my sister tested if she had it, not we claimed she had it and then demanded special treatment for it.

I've also heard similar thing like "oh I could of gone to university", yes but you didn't so have absolutely no idea how you would performed.

 

[Which Tyler]

I could have been a contender in the Olympics at rugby... If only I'd been about 15 years younger, with an awful lot more talent, a suitable work ethic and a high level of competitiveness.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

I could have been a contender in the Olympics at rugby... If only I'd been about 15 years younger, with an awful lot more talent, a suitable work ethic and a high level of competitiveness.

Just claim you feel alienated, bullied and discriminated and that it was society's fault you couldn't make it. Who knows, they might even give you an honorary medal and some sort of monetary compensation.

 

[smartcooky]

Second, the evidence i see around me strongly suggests that, either they are a very, very powerful minority (you'd need to explain why) or not really as small as you (among others) seem to suggest. They are, as much as i hate to admit it, dictating the agenda in a lot of ways: politics, corporate behavior, etc.
Companies and governments are spending money triple checking things before they publish anything in case, somewhere, someone might be offended. They have and/or are developing response protocols about how to react if someone, god forbid, finds something offensive. I kid you not.
I know this for a fact and i am not talking about tiny local shops/councils, but top tier multinationals in pretty much any industry you can think off and anything from municipal to national governments.
I cannot disclose the figures but you would **** your pants if you knew the money companies spend managing political correctness.

I don't doubt it at all, and its one the things that really ****s me off about PC; all the unnecessary BS and that goes on, and money spent just because some members of some fringe/minority group might be offended. The result is that the desires of the tiny minority get foisted on the majority and the majority has no recourse.

The money wasted on vetting documents, publications and policies that might have a remote chance of offending some obscure demographic would be better spent on assistance to that demographic, but unfortunately for them, that would mean the fact checkers who are getting rich on the back of Political Correctness would be out of a job.

We live in an age where, in some jurisdictions, a boss telling his/her direct reports, and i quote: "this is not good, it's actually pretty bad (piece of work)" can be considered bullying legally speaking if said in front of other people. A similar trend is seen in the teachers/students dynamics. We are raising very, and i mean very thin skinned generation of passive aggressive narcissists. We are, as a society, rewarding victim-hood and punishing people with a stiff upper lip. Call me oldschool, but i'd rather have it the other way around.

I don't like where all this is heading but the trend is crystal clear.

Yep, Political Correctness is a creeping virus that infects and infests every part of society. State Education in this country is particularly bad for that. Its run, in the main, by a whole raft of sandal-wearing feminazis with long, dangly earrings and No.1 haircuts. This small but noisy group of mostly women (and a few kaftan-wearing men) has ensured that everyone is a "winner" (or more correctly, winners are not rewarded) that excellence is frowned upon and mediocrity is widespread. They have eliminated "failure" from schools... students who don't meet minimum standards now have "deferred success", even if they never meet the minimum standards! No kidding, this really happens now. "Failure" is a forbidden word.

When I was teaching I had several run-ins with one particular feminazi in a position of authority, who was going to insist that all Department Head ***les were to be "degenderised". At the school where I used to teach, our heads of subject departments were known as "Managers". MDE was Manager; Department of English, MDS, Manager; Department of Sciences, MDH, Manager; Department of History etc. Then we had a new, woman Headmaster arrive (who insisted on being called "Headperson"). At a staff-meeting, she told us all that she wanted to change the ***les of the department heads. This was because she considered the term "manager" to be gender-biased (having the prefix "man"). I laughed, and so did a couple of other teachers, and when she asked me what I though was funny, I asked her if she understood the etymology of the word; that the "man" in "manage" wasn't a prefix at all; that in fact the whole word "manage" was actually derived from the Italian word "maneggiare" which means "to handle" or "to control". This brought more snickering and chuckling in the room, and her face went crimson!

I respectfully suggested that she leave the names of ***les as they are, but that should a woman be appointed to any of the positions, they could replace the word "manager", with "damager". Needless to say, this got me offside quite quickly. Well, what did I expect, embarrassing her like that in front of her staff, especially when her specialisation was in teaching English Language!!!

Well, I did say earlier that I used to teach there.

actually we still have controversies about native american imagery and treatment in hollywood

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...diculous-six-native-americans-trailer/412705/

Interesting, but it has exactly nothing to with what I was talking about; the portrayal of Native Americans as "injuns" and "savages" in John Wayne moves and the like.

Adam Sandler is a dick, and I wouldn't watch anything he's in on principle. There you go, see, I consider his movies offensive, so what do I do about it. I don't go around demanding others be not allowed to watch, I simply vote with my wallet and choose not to watch.

also native americans still largely live on reservations where alcoholism and suicide are higher than the national rates
so essentially the redskins, indians, and kc chiefs are using a subjugated population as mascots

Now you see, right there is the complete disconnect. Native Americans living on reservations and suffering from poverty and acholo overuse has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with team names and mascots. Nothing!

i guess your are going to say something about how the natives choose to continue to live on reservations and that they just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps

which also leads me to believe that you also think blacks in america are lazy and that the continued decline of their neighborhoods has nothing to do with the redlining that limited their options throughout history

Not at all. That's your particular well-poisoning. You're the only one mentioning this.

just because something ends doesn't mean its consequences do

On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for getting over it, and not allowing the past to make you a slave to its injustices. This is the problem that a small number of Maori have in this country, they can't let go of how they were dealt with harshly and unjustly in the past (we're talking about 150-180 years ago so its a similar time frame to Native Americans and American Settlers. There are a small number of well-off Maori who have built up a multi-million dollar grievance industry over righting the wrongs of the past. The trouble is that Urban Maori (the ones who could really do with the assistance) often don't see a penny of any settlements, it all goes to the minority of well-off tribes, and have to take the tribes to court (as happened last moth) to get their share

You should really watch Winter in the Blood, you might learn something

My position is clear and unambiguous. If you find the Washington Redskins name offensive, don't support them, or go to their games or watch them on TV. Same applies to any other team name/symbol/mascot of any other team.

 

[ncurd]

Feminazi, SJW, PC

Time to play right wing ignorance bingo!