Politics, power, and consent in the "redskins" nickname debate

With the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently canceling the Washington Redskins' trademark, and burgeoning opposition from prominent and well-funded groups like the Oneida Indian Nation, I've been back into following a topic that one of my thesis students wrote on last semester. Perusing reader comments on some of the recent news reports and columns (which I generally try not to do online because they're so often just so awful and unhelpful), I've noticed a few patterns I want to address, beyond simply affirming my predictable stance that the team should change its name.

Though I have talked about this issue with students in classes, I've been reluctant to weigh in on it publicly in part because I'm not an Indian, and I believe it's the voices of those who are that should be privileged in this discussion. Identifying those voices, however, can be tricky. Anyone paying attention to this issue is aware of several polls--cited frequently by Dan Snyder and others affiliated with the organization, and many of the team's supporters--that purport to represent a sampling of Native Americans, and that find that the majority of those polled don't oppose the nickname. But who exactly constitutes those samples isn't always clear--after all, who determined that these respondents were American Indian? 2010 census data showed "American Indian" to be one of the nation's fastest-growing demographic groups. While this may be positive--an ethnic population recovering numbers, or a growing awareness of cultural heritage among existing biological populations--it may also reflect growing numbers of Americans who simply choose to define themselves as such for their own reasons. Some may be misguided opportunists hoping to lay claim to what they see as the benefits of Indian identity, some may be claiming for themselves some sort of romanticized heritage; some may be biological descendants of Native Americans who nonetheless aren't particularly entrenched in native communities and cultures; others, of course, are active members of long-standing native communities. Heck, one defense of the name is that it's meant to honor Lone Star Dietz, the team's coach 80 years ago--whose claims to Sioux ancestry are contested. My point here is just that these self-definitions can be hard to parse, but that the nuances here matter significantly for how someone experiences the "Redskins" name.

Opponents of a name-change frequently suggest that this effort is only recent, and that it's a white liberal cause. It strikes me that both concerns work together to displace the very people who are--in theory--central to the question, Native Americans/American Indians, from the debate.

First, I'm never quite sure why it would only be white liberals supporting attempts to treat segments of the population with greater respect--that seems like a universal project. And why should white liberals be particularly concerned about the nickname? My own personal experience is purely anecdotal, but plenty of Indians describe themselves as conservative and vote Republican--in my admittedly somewhat limited experience, those with transparent political affiliations are more often conservative than liberal, so it's not like liberal politicians are just trying to secure their appeal to a large and vocal constituency. I suspect this perception is linked to the idea that being an Indian somehow secures a person with special, undeserved privileges--fishing and hunting rights, state-tax exemptions, casino permits, etc.--akin to social welfare programs ("entitlements").* The fact that prominent media organizations--the supposedly liberal "mainstream media," another conservative bugaboo--have come out in favor of a name-change, and in some cases have stopped using the nickname in favor of awkward substitutes, no doubt reinforces this perception. I also have to think that the idea the federal government is driving this--the Patent Office canceling a trademark in the midst of a presidential administration many people fear is abusing executive power (the IRS flagging non-profits, etc.)--also plays to conservative concerns about the size and power of the federal government, and in this case a government pitted against private business. Again, though, this makes Obama, Democrats, and other liberals the main agents of this push, rather than Native Americans, and shifts the conversation into the realm of contemporary political contests rather than the arena of racial identities and civil rights.

And for the second, the question of timing. Let's be clear: it's not just recent. Native American organizations protested the Redskins specifically as early as the late 1980s, and certainly through the 1990s. The American Indian Movement and other efforts targeted mascots and logos on commercial products, and those used by high schools and colleges, during the 1960s and 1970s. This is not new. Many of those other targets of protest, however, have been more responsive to the concerns voiced than the NFL team has been. What does strike me as newish, as more recent, is the unprecedented platform from which Native Americans can now launch those criticisms, and force their perspectives into public awareness. In part this is a product of their growing numbers, as I noted with the census numbers. In part it's also a product of an increasing ability across the 20th and 21st centuries to define themselves as a community united by a common heritage, and shared cultural practices and concerns. As outright oppression and legal discrimination have diminished, as forcible assimilation efforts have ended, as technological resources have allowed more in-depth study of genealogical records and archaeological sites, and as procedures for recognizing people as American Indians have been updated, growing numbers of cohesive and active American Indian communities have been able to coordinate financial and human resources and direct them toward shared projects.

This is one reason state and federal recognition matter to tribes--they officially acknowledge the existence of these groups in ways that facilitate collective actions, including the ability to voice concerns about social issues they face. In some cases, tribes do seek recognition at least in part to again exercise treaty rights, including those with economic import. I'm perfectly aware some Americans resent economic endeavors like casinos, and gas stations that charge lower prices because they're exempt from certain fuel taxes, and I can at least sympathize with people who find that troubling. At the same time, those are activities that help support these communities--providing employment in some cases, cash payments in others. More importantly, though, are the resources they provide these communities to bolster infrastructure (schools, roads, libraries, etc.), and to reinforce cultural identities (through research, through supporting powwows and language reconstruction projects, etc.). And, pertinent to our discussion here, to support projects like challenging the Redskins nickname, an effort in which the Oneida Indian Nation is currently engaged as a central player (if you follow only one link from this post, that's the one to check out).

To reiterate, then: native communities' opposition to the name Redskins is not new. What is new is the ability of Native American individuals and groups to collectively mobilize in effective ways.

Many of these assertions that pressures for a name change are only recent, and originate with white liberals, seem to me to reflect a tendency to read everything in terms of today's polarized American politics, rather than approaching the issue as one involving a minority population's historical trauma and battle against ongoing colonialism. They attempt to displace from the conversation about the Redskins nickname the very people who are central to it, who may experience it as racist and a homogenization of diverse and distinct identities. In effect, these assertions deny native peoples' agency in the matter, deny them the ability to consent or not to popular, public, and prominent representations of their past and present experiences and identities.

Whatever the outcome of this dispute/conversation, whatever the prevailing opinion of the majority of Native Americans is, the attempt to deny them the central role in the discussion is an exercise of power that, now more than ever, Native Americans can effectively challenge.

*In Rez Life, Ojibwe author David Treuer points makes a distinction that people often forget. Treaty rights aren't extra rights given to Native Americans, but rather, traditional rights native peoples had that they reserved for themselves when negotiating the sale or cession of parts of their territories to the United States. They may have lost the ability to make use of those rights at various points in the past, but that didn't terminate those rights. Different discussion.

my rant on soccer, america and the world

First off, let me say over the course of the last 12 plus years i've increasingly become more and more of a fan of soccer and less so of basketball, including both pro and college. I think mostly because i've gotten older, hate the way the game is played now-a-days and the fact that morons like Carmelo Anthony are making 20 plus million a year and says that defense is something that he doesn't need to improve on. Here are my point:

1. So apparently the US just played 3 teams in the top 5 in the FIFA world rankings (Germany, Portugal and Belgium). I believe we are around 22 ish in those same rankings (right before the cup started). We lost to Germany 1-0 (we played defense the whole game knowing we had to give up 5 goals or so not to advance out of group stage), tied Portugal 2-2 (we dominated and held their douchey superstar to nothing until the last 30 seconds when he had a cross over the middle for the goal that tied it) and lost to Belgium in 15 minute extra period 2-1 (they domintated us). Here's my point if these countries were so great  why the hell were the games so close!!! Imagine a number 2 ranked Ohio State football team taking on a number 23 Idaho State....99 out of 100 times ohio state DOMINATES and destroys them. There's that 1 game that the breaks go the other way and an upset happens. I just can't comprehend how little the score and the game play is reflected in these games. Basically these FIFA country ranking are the biggest farce of all, or I just don't understand apparently how soccer has no difference in skill level, or very little, from 1-30 or so. Explain please.

2. What the F**K do soccer coaches do? They set a lineup...and manage 3 subs. Do they call plays? Most of the time I see them sitting on the bench not doing anything, and occasionaly getting up to yell at the refs who are most likely calling a foul when someone flops to the ground. I mean they do something, they decide the attack or defensive strategies against an opponent and who they guard more tightly but I can't see them doing anything else...

3. There are 220 or so countries that compete for world cup spots...the top 32 make it, 1 is automatic (host country) and so 31 spots are left. United States has qualified for something like 6 in a row.  A lot of the world thinks the united states as a horrible soccer country, but really, we are now in the upper echelon in the soccer world. We have gotten out of the group stage in 2 of the last 3 (Portugal, spain, england, etc etc) all didn't this year, england and portugual the last 3 world cups. We have gotten to the quarterfinals once in the last 3 (2002) and we have players from the us making significant contributions for some powerhouse european clubs (howard, altidore, etc). We have some dominant players coming up in the system that by the 2018 world cup they may be superstars. My point is this: they shouldn't be laughing, especially england, at the us anymore. I have no doubt we will continue this world cup streak and hopefully we continue to improve.

4. The united states dominates the rest of the world when it comes to producing top level athletic talent. We produce the best baseball, basketball and football talent than all the other countries. While the Japanese Baseball League does have some nice talent, it's no where close to MLB. We have a countries best players play in our leagues and that's very few. Baseball does have the most foreign talent than the other leagues but it's still a low number in the whole league. Germany's best basketball player is Nowitski...that's it. why haven't they produced another talent, because there busy playing soccer i guess. England- where's your 7 foot tall basketball stud, or baseball talent, oh wait you're too busy being idiots and drinking tea and watching the queen continue to be a piece of shit. Hey Russia- you've produced like 3 pro basketball players and the best one (Arbynis Sabonis) was pretty horrible and most can't cut it in the talented leagues. So the united states is producing athletes that not only dominate our leagues (which outside of the mls are all better talent wise) we are sending athletes to play in yours.

5. Was listening to a rant by a caller on a sports talk show and he said the only way that the US will ever break through in soccer is that we have to convince our best athletes to play soccer rather than baseball, basketball, football, etc. Not going to happen. Soccer players are all average size people, there aren't any of them that we would think of as freakishly athletic (ie Lebron James). Lionel Messi is 5'8 and weighs like 175...oh my god that's so intimidating. So would James dominate on the soccer pitching. Most likely...but he'd get yellow card after yellow card because he's touch one of those skinny nerds and they'd fly 10 feet and skid on the ground. This concludes my rant. Talent disparity in soccer is not so different between the top and the middle, US is no longer a joke in soccer, coaches don't do anything, and we produce by far the most talented athletes.

lincecum hof?

With tim lincecums second career no hitter last night it got me asking myself if he was a hall of famer. With only 95 career wins and a .600 winning percentage those dont seem like hof numbers. But in this new era of statiscal analysis i believe he is. If he has 6 more years and averages 13 wins thats around 80 wins and throw in Random wins hes likely to finish his career with 200 wins. His era will be in the low to mid 3s and his strikeouts high. But you cant compare him to a generation ago pitcher. He dominated baaeball for 3 years. He has had an above average career after that. His whip is above average and for the 6th time hes on pace for 200ks. In an era when we look at a players wins and losses a pitcher has many more credible stats. Quality starts, innings pitched, era in no decisions, whips, war etc etc. All stats that lincecum has above average numbers. Look at a guy like verlander, his numbers have fallen off as well but he doeant have two titles under his belt. When hes all done lincecum should be a first or second ballot hal of famer

flopping

Last night in the nba finals there was a play where dwayne wade reacted in pain to getting hit in the face by a spurs defender and the ref responded by calling a foul. While i rip on nba refs as being the worst in any sport by a long shot this is one area that the league should step in. In the mentioned play the defender came no where near wades face but like the doucher wade is he acted like he had. While the league has taken steps to alleviate the flopping situation assessing fines of 5k and 10k and possible suspension the league needs to hurt them in the place that hurts the most, like charlie kelly says " in the dick" figuratively speaking. Heres what i mean, have an independent rep at each game whos job it is to watch video and if he deems a foul called and that player flops its a techical 2 shots and the ball. After 3 on the season its a 5 game suspension.
Kinda over this thought since the seaaons over but now i can watch a bunch of futbol floppers

Clippers sale

Clippers sold for $2 billion. That's insane--the previous sale of a franchise, the Bucks (okay, decidedly a less appealing purchase), was for $550 million. That's a ridiculous increase in a short period of time--albeit for a team with a solid foundation, a decent facility (albeit a shared one), a prime location for attracting employees/players, and a great market (albeit a competitive one).

It's maybe a weird connection to make, but I thought about something I read recently that covered hedge funds buying fast food franchises. Yeah, really--hear me out. These are businesses with controlled labor costs (fast food employees are getting minimum wage and no benefits; the NBA has a salary structure that deals in larger amounts but implements a cap, max contracts, luxury taxes to curtail overspending, etc), and with minimal key personnel possessed of unique skills (arguably nobody but marketers in fast food, but the actual players and some coaches and scouts in the NBA). Everybody else in these organizations is replaceable, whether because their labor is relatively unskilled, because there are droves of individuals who could fill that role. Even scouts are being replaced by analytics and an emphasis on big data (sort of--I know the big lesson is that these should complement each other)--and big data analytics doesn't necessarily rely on people with expertise in the sport, but rather in broader evaluative mechanisms. Once again, this is potentially cost effective and measurable and outsource-able for owners--if you can hire an economics major at the entry level to replace the years of experience of a scout, why not do it? Cheerleaders are defined as independent contractors rather than employees; the spots on the squads are posed as entry-level, with an emphasis on the potential for upward mobility and connections elsewhere; this reminds me of the exploitation of interns a few years back, young people getting paid nothing to do tons of work because it was supposedly a foot in the door.

I don't exactly think players reap no benefits from this system, but I think the deficiencies are overlooked because of the massive salaries (dwarfed by franchise values and owners' profits, though). These are employees with limited careers, who have highly specialized skills that quickly diminish and can't really be translated easily to other fields. Essentially this is vocational training, an approach to higher education we see growing in the U.S., which may yield short-term advantages but ultimately inhibits flexibility in the long-term as those specialized vocational skills either become outdated or become interchangeable with younger, cheaper labor.

Meanwhile, the product is tightly controlled--the NBA doesn't have to face competition. There are limited quantities of quality NBA basketball and so production is limited (30 teams, 82 games each), but unlimited scale (that limited product can potentially be consumed by 8 billion people worldwide). As long as you can expand that audience via the internet, TV contracts (getting bigger because live sports are DVR-proof in comparison to other programming, so people aren't skipping those commercials), etc., you can build the audience paying to consume that product. Then, as your audience grows, you demand more for other companies to access your customer base, using your product as a vehicle for advertising (the same thing Google, cable TV, Facebook, etc do).

So now you have a product with limited production costs but potentially practically unlimited sales.

Add to that the fact that these moneymakers are publicly subsidized by the people who then turn around and pay to consume them, and this gets to be an even better deal for billionaires. Recent studies have uncovered how dependent fast-food-sector workers are on public assistance--for health care, food stamps, etc. In the NBA, it's arenas, which pose as a public good and a symbol of civic pride, pretending to generate tons of jobs (many of them of course end up being low-paying and temporary/seasonal) that will benefit the local economy while demanding millions in taxpayer money every decade or so, communities and politicians held hostage by high-profile owners/organizations.

And thus $2 billion for the Clippers. It's a lot of money, and it will be worth it. Steve Ballmer knows this--whatever you think of Microsoft, the dude who has run it for the last decade is smart and knows how to turn a profit. In other words, this isn't just a vanity purchase--it's smart business.

It's worth thinking a bit about the actual shift in ownership here, too, aside from the fact that Ballmer may just be a less contemptible human. Ballmer may not have any experience running a basketball team, but he can run a business, and if he can extend that managerial competence to the NBA--and I think he can, in part because we're talking about an industry that, as I've outlined above, doesn't necessarily rely on an organization stocked only with highly specialized skill-positions, but has to some degree deskilled much of its labor force through standardization and big data, etc. He recognized that moving MS Office to a subscription base would solve the problem Windows XP created by ensuring a constant revenue stream as users are forced continue paying after purchasing the initial subscription, and aren't season tickets much the same? TV rights? Plus there's all the ancillary benefits--concession sales, etc. And it matters less and less for owners if the costs of actually attending a game alienate fans, because those fans will still be obligated to pay to purchase TV access (and even if they choose to boycott the team/sport, their cable package costs are driven by sports channels)--and ultimately that might even appeal to some owners who would be freed from the overhead on facilities, staffing, etc.

I know that's a slippery slope argument, but it doesn't strike me as completely absurd, and I think taking the situation to its extreme just serves to reinforce how logical a $2 billion purchase price may actually be.

Scuffling?

Jason the English Wizard can probably let me know if I am off base on this, but I can't stand the use of the word "scuffling" to describe a baseball player in a slump.  As far as I can tell, this term wasn't used until noted wordsmiths like John Kruk joined the crew.  I can't think of others off the top of my head that started this "revolution" but I know that Kruk is the first guy I ever heard say it.  To bolster my credentials in this case, I was an avid watcher of Baseball Tonight until about 25 years of age, which makes me a self-proclaimed expert!  Or not.

The word scuffle means "struggle" or "struggle to get by."  This does fit a batter who is struggling at the plate to a certain extent.  However, isn't struggle just a better word?  I've also heard (and used) the phrase "fighting it" to describe struggling.

With all of that said, to me a scuffle is a true fight.  I can understand a bench clearing brawl as two teams scuffling.  I feel like it is a stretch to call struggles with athletic performance scuffling.  In fact, every time I hear this term used, I immediately shut off whatever show/radio program is using it.  It just sounds wrong.

To end this rant (which I hope and pray Jason agrees with!), I recently heard the esteemed (not so much... he is an idiot) Kevin Gorg repeatedly use the word "scruffling" to describe a player struggling. Not cool, moron!  This guy is a sideline reporter/beat reporter known for being a complete idiot in the Twin Cities.  The question I have is:  Is scruffling a fight between multiple people to pick up a cat by the scruff?  If so, let's start a new sport and sell some tickets!

The Middle Ground?

Andy Dalton thinks that the 49ers and Colin Kaepernick "found the middle ground" and got a deal done.  Hmmmm.  While I understand now that a lot of the guaranteed money is not actually guaranteed (soft guarantees is what experts are calling it), he is still among the top paid players in the NFL.  The 49ers had a pretty poor passing attack last year, and while Kaepernick is a great athlete, let's not ignore the fact that the team was great mostly due to a great defense.  I love how Dalton is trying to politic his way to a huge contract based on Kaepernick's.   This is going to go down as the age of mediocre QBs getting gigantic contracts (Kaepernick is better than mediocre, and may end up great, but Dalton and Alex Smith are average and will get ridiculous money).  Fun stuff.