Hola amigos. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged at ya, but the goings on in the Brother Bob household have kept me busy, and with all of the scandals that have been in the press over the last few weeks there hasn’t been an angle I could present that hasn’t already been written by somebody smarter than me. So let’s have a diversion with a subject of far greater importance to our country – pro football!
One of my favorite sports personalities is Jim Rome. For those of you unfamiliar he has spent the last few decades as the most famous sports radio talk show host. In addition to his daily syndicated radio show, he also has a daily 30 minute show on the CBS Sports Network and a one hour program on Showtime. He has more than his share of detractors, who often call him arrogant and repetitive. His low point came back in 1994 in an interview with Jim Everett which, years later Rome admitted was foolish on his part. But I’ve always enjoyed him – whether on the radio (back when he was still in the DC market) or on his evening show, I like him because he has learned from his mistakes to become a good interviewer, he finds interesting angles, and I think he can be damned funny at times. I’ve even found myself enjoying interviews with players whose sport I have zero interest in. I don’t golf, and although I do try to watch The Masters, I never watch it on TV and I certainly don’t listen to it on the radio. But around 12 years ago as I was driving to lunch he was interviewing a pro golfer I resisted the urge to immediately change the station at the start and wound up listening to the entire thing. Not many interviewers can pull that off.
Rome also handles politics well, in that he mostly avoids it. On the rare occasions he jumps into those waters he usually injects just enough snark into his leftist shots that you can just chuckle at it or wave it off. This is actually a rare talent, as among sports journalists I’ve only seen two others who can pull this trick off. If you’re wondering, they are Sports Illustrated’s great former pro football writer Paul Zimmerman, who sadly had his career ended a few years ago by a stroke, and author and SI freelancer Jeff Pearlman. Zimmerman’s rare shots were abrasive, but (like his sports-related shots) they were always brief and came off as honest and he quickly moved on. When Pearlman sometimes appears on Rome’s show he is up front about his views and throws the occasional dig, but he keeps it reigned in enough to not make you forget that the conversation is about sports. Most of the time with other sports reporters you get views that come off as whiny and naive, like SI’s Peter King, or self-righteous and condescending, like ESPN’s Rick Reiley. This is why I was so disappointed with how Rome’s been discussing the “controversy” regarding the Washington Redskins.
The Redskins are Washington DC’s pro football franchise, and their team nickname goes back to before their 1937 move to DC when in 1932 they changed their name from the Boston Braves to the Boston Redskins. You probably see where this is going – in recent years the professional grievance mongering community has decided that the team nickname is offensive and must be changed. Some DC politicos are calling for the name change, the local free alternative DC City Paper will now only refer to the team as “The Pigskins”, and a few years ago a Native American Indian advocacy group filed an unsuccessful lawsuit with the Patent & Trademark office to take away the team’s rights to the name. And I get the arguments – it’s meant as a slur, how would you feel if it were your demographic being named, etc. Heck, I remember about a decade ago having an interesting discussion on the subject with a cabbie and actually raising the same points that the people arguing for a name change are making today. Not that I supported the change (and still don’t), it’s just that I was pointing out the other side of the debate to the cabbie, who was very much in favor of keeping the team name.
Rome even shot a few digs at Redskins’ Quarterback Robert Griffin III (aka: RGIII) for some ambiguous tweets that may or may have not been on this subject. On 4/30 RGIII made the following two tweets:
In a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness
Tyranny- a condition imposed by some outside agency or force living under the tyranny of the clock
Naturally, Rome feels that the name needs to be changed – period. Rome and his sportscaster guests all agreed that RGIII had no idea what tyranny entailed and that his comments were inappropriate. Unfortunately on this story Rome and his colleagues missed the boat. Not that they didn’t have fair arguments, but it’s that they missed the notion that there was even another side to the story.
First off, the team name will not be changing as long as Daniel Snyder is the owner of the team. People forget that first an foremost Snyder is a lifelong fan of the team, and is now living the dream of owning the team he rooted for while growing up. And I’m no fan of Snyder’s – when he first bought the team he quickly earned the reputation as an obnoxious, arrogant micro manager. For that matter, I don’t even like the Redskins – I’m a long suffering Philadelphia Eagles fan. Hey, I actually liked the days when Snyder, along with General Manager Vinny Cerrato and Head Coach Steve Spurrier were mismanaging the Redskins to the point where I knew that with that brain trust running things the Eagles could count on two wins per season against them. My point is that however misguided and delusional about his football knowledge Snyder may have been (he backed off a few years ago and started letting real football people run the team itself), his passion for the team has never been in question, and he is about as ready to budge as any other similarly passionate fan would be if he or she were to take over their favorite team. But there’s another element to this where Rome completely whiffed in his coverage.
Who are the people who are deeply offended and concerned about the Redskins name? We’ve got a handful of Native American professional grievance mongers, some leftist politicians, and most of the leftist sports writer world. Do you know who else is concerned about this? Nobody. OK, that’s an exaggeration, but not many people outside of the leftosphere care one way or another. Two opinion polls (that were admittedly flawed) showed most Americans, and specifically most Native Americans don’t really care about this. Sports writers seem to have a near unanimous opinion on this subject, but they fail to realize that outside of the bubble where they live very few people share their views.
We see this same disconnect from reality in our leftist elites in the political/media/entertainment industrial complex. In a recent editorial The Washington Posts’s Mike Konczal shows his blissful disconnection from reality as he argues for Universal Basic Income. In a recent interview Nancy Pelosi said with a straight face that Obamacare will be a boon for job creation. Apparently she doesn’t get out much and talk to people out in the real world, and for that matter she is apparently powerful enough to also be insulated from most of her cohorts on Capitol Hill. We also see it in the incestuous relationships between news organizations and the Obama White House, which may help to explain the blissful ignorance with which journalists have treated all of the recent scandals of this administration until it turned uglyfor members of the press.
Lefties aren’t the only ones prone to the bubble mentality, either. Most of you reading this are conservatives, and how often do we venture outside of our own ideological circles? How often do we look for news stories outside of Fox News, Drudge, and our favorite blogs other than when one of our favorite writers is ripping on some story in the MSM and embeds a hyperlink to it? How many of us tuned in to election night results back in November 2012 confident that Romney was going to win? Even worse, how many of us thought that Romney was going to win in a landslide? I was one of the ones who knew that President Obama was going to get re-elected, but I did have one sliver of hope that I was wrong. And lest you think I’m blowing my own horn as some prognosticating genius, look no further than my predictions for the Eagles’ 2012 season, where I was thinking of a possible Super Bowl, while reality was thinking more on the lines of a 4-12 finish, 4th worst in the league.
Back to the original subject, Jim Rome could have made a stronger case had he sought opinions outside of his bubble on the team name. As for RGIII’s tweets, instead of just dismissing the comments as those of some clueless, naive kid, maybe Rome should have had that discussion with someone who recognizes that political correctness and it’s attacks on free speech are a real threat. Maybe the youngster is a lot smarter than Rome or his cohorts realize, and it’s a shame that they’ll never even think to question that assumption. As difficult as this is for this Eagles fan to say, on this day and on this issue only, I offer to Snyder and RGIII a sincere “Hail to the Redskins”. And just so there’s no misunderstanding, when our teams meet in our season opener in September I will still be rooting for my birds to beat the tobacco juice out of your team!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go out and buy a dartboard so I can improve my football forecasting skills. And if that doesn’t work maybe I can use the darts to burst a few bubbles.
Cross Postedfrom Brother Bob’s Blog
“In a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness”
– First they started hacking at the religion phrase in the First Amendment – chipping Christians and their God out of schools, public places and now the military…..
– Then after weakening the 4th, 5th and 10th Amendments – they started after the 2nd Amendment …..
– Now they are returning to that 1st Amendment to whittle on that silly freedom of speech phrase. Hate Laws, hate speech, and no-no words have become the new normal… and we sit in the pot while the heat goes up.
It will be interesting to see if now that big gob’mint has gored the MSM’s ox (freedom of the press) … they will arise and lead the outrage, or if they have become such well trained lap dogs that they have have lost their bark and bite!
ohh! ohh! I got it. How’bout the “Potomac River Basin Indigenous People” yeah…that’s tha ticket…
Most if not all First Nation people I know take pride in sports teams using them as team icons. It is a source of pride they don’t want to lose. In reality it is a compliment and a measure of respect for cultures that have largely been ground into the mire of history.
If we must change the name, think about the Muslim Fanatics or the Islamic Homicidal Maniacs. That should make our Leftists happy. Let’s think team spirit and dedication to a cause, and put the sympathies of our executive and state departments ahead of everything. Everyone will be lungeing in the traces to buy tickets to watch the Muslim Fanatics score touchdowns and the cheerleaders in brightly colored table cloths will be a lively topic of conversation.
I care, it bothers me. I’m half NA, and I think the name completely degrades the Native American community. I don’t have a problem with Braves, I’m a huge Florida State fan, don’t have a problem with the Indians (although I find their mascot rather offensive). I have always found the name Redskins offensive, it’s not something I just happened upon. Going to elementary school, I was call Prairie Nigger, Bush Nigger, Redskin, Chief, Tonto, Cochise, and other names that don’t seem to relate to NAs. Just so you know, the name redskins comes from the torture bounty hunters inflicted on NAs by skinning them. It’s not some noble name NAs should be proud of.
For whatever reason, NAs seem to be the only group it’s ok to denigrate. Hell, even the Rev. Al Sharpton says Redskins isn’t a racial slur. So, there you have it. Personally, I won’t loose any sleep over it. But if you say it in my presence, I will knock the crap out of you.
@Aqua: I am sorry you suffered abuse or discrimination in school. Some kids are mean and they grow up to be mean and vindictive.
I’ve heard several variations of that story you referred to, most of them worse than the one you mentioned. I came to doubt the veracity of the story over time. I once made a living skinning animals and stretching their hides to dry, and although, I have never skinned a human, I can tell you with a great deal of assurance, the flesh side of all hides turns a whitish tan color when it dries.
I am not being a wise ass; this is the truth and the reason I began to doubt the story on the origin of the name. I respect your opinion, and I must admit, I have never quizzed people on the Redskins name, it only came to my attention this year, but I am more familiar with names like the Blackhawks and countless other names of lesser teams. I only watch hockey and many NA people are rabid hockey fans. With these fans, the suggestion of dropping such names will likely produce an argument or worse.
I write for two different First Nation groups in Canada, so I am not entirely out of touch with their feelings, but I will be more careful in the future. Thank you for your opinion.
@Skookum:
Thanks, but no need to be sorry. Adversity in life makes you what you are; I’m happy with who I am.
True, I’ve done my share of skinning animals as well. Obviously nowhere near the same scale as you have though. But anyone that has ever skinned themselves in an accident can attest that the underlying skin turns red. That is where I understood the term to come from.
I’m a huge football fan. I’m a Minnesota Vikings fan from way back. My favorite football team is the FSU Seminoles, the only team mascot sanction by NAs. I live in Georgia, love the Braves, although I refuse to participate in the stupid tomahawk chop. I do get a kick out of everyone else doing it though. But I do think Redskins is an offensive term. And I’ll admit, the fact that Al Sharpton says it isn’t, just makes it even more offensive.
Good point, good point.
Just today I linked to a leftist ”truth-out” article about how Obama used a World War One espionage law (that had only been used three times before him) six times to attempt to stop whistle blowers.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/16120-six-whistleblowers-charged-under-the-espionage-act
My use of it also shows that politics makes for strange bed fellows arrangements.
The mainstream media refused to cover this story.
Fox News had a reporter involved YET it was the first I’d read or heard about it!
Al isn’t on the top of my list of honorable people I use for reference.
1. The Washington Redskins are not from Washington. They are based in Landover, MD. Their pre-season camp will soon be in Richmond, VA. The only connection to Washington is that they played there from the time they left Boston to the time when Jack Kent Cooke (former owner) built a new stadium complex.
2. The Washington Redskins are not Native American. They had an assistant coach 70 years ago who was Native American, and the team was renamed for him. They were originally the Boston Braves.
3. The whole argument is specious: the D C City Council has no connection with the team.
4. Let them be the Landover Larks (or the Landover Lapwings), if it really bothers you. But you will have to buy the team first.
5. Dan Snyder is not selling. So forget about it.
If you are offended, scrape up about $1.4 billion and make an offer.
@Aqua: Fair points, thanks for some good opposing opinions
@Nan G: Pretty creepy. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that times like this make me miss Bush. Not that these things couldn’t have happened under him, but at least the MSM would give a damn. Of course, that might have been exactly what kept his administration as honest as it was…
@Mathman: In all fairness to the ‘Skins on point #1, a lot of teams don’t play in their team’s city limits. I had years of fun with the Irving Cowboys fans and don’t even get this Jersey Boy started on how I’d bust my friends about their “New York” teams! As for point #5, as an Eagles fan let’s hope that Snyder never sells!
@mathman:
So…..you’re not allowed to be offended unless you can come up with the cash to buy the team? You should just shut the hell up and deal with it? Sometimes there are people on the right that sound just like the people on the left.
I don’t care what he calls the team, but don’t tell me I shouldn’t be offended. And damn sure don’t tell me it’s a tribute to the Native American people.
@Aqua: As a NA you have every right to be offended by a name derived from such an act. You’re acceptance of Cleveland Indians, FSU Seminoles etc shows your rational thought on this subject.
This whole-to-about-nothing story is just silly.