I'm lost as to what your point is. If you think providing irrelevant empirical evidence somehow validates an argument, well good for you. Storm front uses the empirical evidence to obfuscate the issue and I agree, they are very clever at it.
I showed that by many metrics, he is being "rational".
I disagree that you've shown him to be rational.
Ok, then do so.
Quote from Bundy »
They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton,"
Learning to pick cotton is not a rational argument as to why people abort their children or go to jail.
And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?
This implies black people have only two options, picking cotton or government subsidy. We know this to be untrue.
They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom
Do I need to explain why this is wrong?
Yet--either way--I have a feeling it will come down to the interpretation of the numbers, not empirical evidence.
I think in most cases the numbers are irrelevant. Correlation does not imply causation. I think it comes down to a simple exercise in logic.
I'm not sure of potential. I see there needs to exist actual harm. I'm still wondering how this is relevant to the Redskins issue.
If harm can be shown from a type of speech that type of speech should be punished?
Billydman you have forgotten this question. What is your answer? This question was spawned off our discussion revolving around why slander should be punished by the government.
Depends on the harm. We've been through this. If there is tangible proof of harm (namely monetary) an equitable amount money should be paid to the victim. I have not seen or heard of any tangible harm occurring to a Native American or Native Americans due to the Washington Redskins name. I personally do not consider feelings as tangible harm. If we are speaking legally, please make your point instead of asking 20 questions.
Except what was meant by 'rational argument' wasn't defined. I suspect it was either 'supported empirically' or 'non-contradictory.' The first being rather strict for an opinion (in the strict scientific sense, anyway) and the latter being rather loose. Nearly everyone that has ever sincerely made an argument believes it to be "rational." And, nearly everyone will admit to being wrong (eventually) if a true contradiction is found in their reasoning. Thus, I would say even a racist has a kind of "rational argument," except one can't be racist and have one based on that definition. Thus, hardly anyone would fall into that definition of "racist," depending on how strict we mean 'rational argument.'
Whether a person thinks its rational does not it make a rational argument.
I started this thread because I felt that Mr. Bundy was wrong when he claimed to not be racist. Yet, when someone claims to be or not be something--and that something doesn't have a strict definition--I've been trying more-often to take them at face value (or at least figure out what the person means by the claim). I was interested to understand what kind of definition Mr. Bundy was using to come to the conclusion he wasn't racist; "racism" being a word with multiple definitions.
You are talking about a group of people who probably have never been around black people very much, never really attempted to learn about racism, diversity and equality. I do not imagine there is a lot of EO training on a ranch. It seems odd and hard to believe but he doesn't know what racism is and its obvious.
In reading some of the responses on this thread, it seemed to me he was using the same definition many of you use. Mr. Bundy clearly believes his argument to be rational, likely believes it to be supported empirically, and it's probably non-contradictory. I'm sure a pollster could get some "empirical data" (I use the term in its loosest sense here) to back him up, and I doubt you could find a true contradiction in his reasoning (or at least one that couldn't be hand-waved away).
Its really easy to use critical thought and understand he is nothing more than an ignorant fool:
Quote from Bundy »
"They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton," Bundy said to reporters according to the New York Times. "And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom,"
His entire argument is predicated on stereotypes which is easy to disprove. His statement is anything but rational when taken in objectively.
Thus, my reasoning is that those definitions must be 'wrong,' since they lead to a conclusion I hold to be nonfactual. The consensuses is Mr. Bundy is racist. Thus, any premise that leads us to a different conclusion must be outside the norm.
It does not matter if he believes it to be rational for it to not be racist. It has to pass objective scrutiny.
You can find all the examples you want, I can find logical faults with them all. I've stated there may be situations out there where its reasonable to rank races that include sound and reasonable evidence but so far you've failed to find any, including this one.
If you stated that anywhere I guess I am sorry... I just found the notion that any ranking based on race has to racist to be ridiculous. Assuming there exists some task where being lighter/darker skin is beneficial, it would be fair and not racist to say that white/black people are more suited to/better at that task (despite the fact that there exist outliars).
I do not speak in absolutes or try not too. Crashing pretty much laid it out where I stood using much better grammar. Finally, I think its time we as a society stopped talking about race in generalities, if for no other reason it leads to poor results.
Quote from Crashing »
I don't think you do your opponents justice with this misinterpretation of their position. DokuDokuH, for instance, has said that mere politeness is not an "out" -- the supposed racist must make a sound, rational argument for his claim in order to get the "out." billydaman appears to be saying much the same thing.
I'll remove the wall of text and be a bit more blunt:
Quote from ECP »
The primary difference here is that there does not exist powerfully offensive racial slurs against white people in the United States
Quote from ECP »
Hasn't your entire point been that words like cracker are these massive racial slurs and that the word is just as bad as n*****?
This quote was the end to any reasonable discussion we will have. If you do not view this statement by you as a racist statement, we have nothing to discuss. You measure the power of a racist slur by the color someones skin.. I'm not going to enter or address any of your comments when you have an obvious and explicit racist belief. You believe its right to measure the impact of racial slurs and you found it important enough to tell people about it and you continue to assail me with this belief as if I am wrong for not agreeing with this racist concept as if cracker and ****** offensiveness needs to be distinguished. The only logical reason to do this is to either to mitigate or exaggerate racism. I see no reason to do either. A racist slur is a racist slur, it should not matter if one is "just as bad" or "massive" or "as powerful".
There is a fundamental problem when you say ****** is worse than cracker. The purported degree of offensiveness of a racist slur is irrelevant. You want to make it relevant, why? You do not think cracker is a racist slur or is not offensive enough to be harmful or warrant any serious contempt. My contempt for the word is laughed off by you....and you have the gall to ask me to take you serious when you talk about racist slurs directed towards Native Americans? You don't care about racism, you care about Native Americans, which is okay but stop pretending. That's my ******* point.
There are generations of poor white people in the south eastern united states who have and continue to pay for the sins of their ancestors. They are constantly reminded about how horrible their ancestors were and how privileged they are to be white and if they dare speak up about any sort of injustice concerning racism, they are told to shut the **** up and laughed by others. The Pursuer is great example of this. Cracker is yet another reminder of things beyond our control yet you want to try and mitigate or trivialize this racism by comparing it to ******.
Oh yeah, I've never said I was correct, I've just called your statement(s) racist and logically incoherent. Keep laughing off a racist slur, its becoming of your argument.
What are your opinions on the prevalence, cause and treatment of certain controversial mental illnesses?
Prevalence:
I think any time you have profit associated with diagnosis and treatment there are a not an insignificant amount of misdiagnoses.
Causes:
I think there are too many to adequately explain but obviously most are weighted towards physiological and psychological.
Treatment:
Same as prevalence but in my experience, its been all about developing coping mechanisms rather address the causes. These afflictions are part of us that we have to manage which is incredibly frustrating for me. This stigma associated with this stuff is still horrible and its not helped by the people who are taking advantage of it.
An inability to control focus is a great way to describe ADD. I've always been hyper and I think a large reason ADD people move fast is because they do not want to forget what they are doing or get in to a rush because they want to keep pace with their thoughts as least that's the way I feel.
I've been resistance to drugs treatment myself due to my nature of addiction. I've come to conclusion that most people have to accept they have these issues and learn to deal with them one way or another because their is no real cure.
First, I initially applied your logic to the offensiveness to a word, not the relevance. I made no determination on the relevance in my initial post. Try to keep that straight. I was pointing out this out to show that if we applied your logic we'd have to change the name of cracker jack (which is not talking about an edible cracker but rather a name for a white cartoon character and pop corn snack and obviously cracker is a pejorative as well) to which I find just as absurd as changing the name of the UNCF, NAACP, Redskins. If you want to say Cracker Jack is not similar to Redskin I'd believe you have logical inconsistency and bringing up cracker jack as the name of a white cartoon character of a non-cracker product is relevant to demonstrate this.
Consequently, we fundamentally disagree. You believe we should not use racial slurs at all, irrelevant of other contexts that may or may not exist out of respect to all people. I believe we are smart enough to know when the use of a word intended as derogatory or nothing more than a name for something. There really is no more for us to discuss. You think I lack compassion and understanding while I think you lack the ability to accept that people are intelligent enough to know the difference. There really is no other place we can go.
Put it this way: even if there had been no forced migrations or sterilizations or plague blankets or massacres, even if race relations on this continent had been pure sunshine and lollipops throughout, it still would not be okay to brand your sports team with a racial slur. Because the reason racial slurs are objectionable does not derive from specific historical events; it derives from basic, universal human dignity.
This pretty much says why cracker in cracker jack has to go, using your logic and obviously I find that absurd.
I think there is a distinct difference between willfully committing a crime knowing you may be forced into working
Yeah because drug addiction is something you should punish with years of hard labour with no compensation. Your just world philosophy is bull***** nonsense and I'm through with you.
I think you missed this part in my unedited post:
Quote from Billy »
One, end the drug war. Two, address the reasons people are committing crime in the first place instead of worrying about how bad we are going to punish them.
Its actually quite funny you find fault with my world view on addiction. I bet it is also comical to the people who vehemently argue with me about most issues as they would probably say you are obviously unaware of my position on drugs and addiction and criminality but I digress, you are done with me and it's bull*****. Its bull***** we should remove prison sentences for most drug offenders.
Oh and the labor is voluntary. I wish I could say it was stimulating hearing all about the anti-racist meme's and rhetoric you've recited thus far but I've seen it all before and its mostly sensational bull***** used to rile up low-information voters.
Oh my GAWD do I ever not care. Maybe when southern white people have had systemic violence perpetrated against them they can complain about an otherwise innocuous pejorative. Until then, not before.
Tell me, how many Native Americans have had systemic violence perpetrated against them? Before you go all history on me, I'm talking about the same generation of white people you are speaking about in your response. The current generation of Native Americans and White Americans are removed from the systemic violence you are speaking about. You are making the argument that white people have not faced systemic violence so their complaints are irrelevant. Does that make Native Americans arguments irrelevant as they have not faced systemic violence either?
We will ignore the continued oppression of white southern people as a direct result of punishing them for slavery that you your self perpetuate by not caring, never mind this also has debilitating effect on black people as well. There is a reason the south is poorer than the north, even today. Now, the likes of you will just tell me to shut up and take it. The difference between me and you is that I pretty much detest all racism and do not distinguish between the two You only detest certain kinds and it appears it is largely due to the race of the people its happening too.
(As an aside, there actually is a lot of persecution of albinos in Africa. It's thought the bones of albinos cure various diseases. Cue...hunting the most dangerous game, for fake medicine.)
So your position is that any generalization that has to do with race is racist? If I say "black people xyz". It's a racist statement because there exists a non-zero amount of black people that the statement is not true for? Do we seriously have to put "in general" into every statement? "In general black people are...." "In general women prefer..."? Or is that still racist/sexist?
How can you not understand this when it's been explained to you repeatedly?
Read these two statements:
black people eat meat.
black people are better at eating meat than white people.
These two statements are generalizations. One is racist, one is not racist. It seems its impossible for you to tell the difference between the two statements. If you can not tell the difference between these two statements, you should bow out of the discussion instead of perpetuating your straw man about "any generalization".
Black people have darker skin than white people. (typically)
Because of this, black people make better background stage hands because they don't have to wear as much black clothing to hide themselves as they change the sets.
I do not see this as being racist... Yes it states that one race is batter than another at something... but it can be a true statement. It's not an absolute statement. If I said "All black people are better stage hands than all white people" then silly examples of an albino black person would matter. For the statement I made previous though, it does not.
You can find all the examples you want, I can find logical faults with them all. I've stated there may be situations out there where its reasonable to rank races that include sound and reasonable evidence but so far you've failed to find any, including this one.
I do not understand why you think it makes them better at it because they don't have to wear more black clothing. Their clothing nor their skin has anything to do with their skills or abilities as stage hands. You may say black people blend better than white people but then I would argue a white person can blend in just the same as a black person by applying makeup to their exposed skin. The point I'm making is, people do things differently for a variety of reasons, including skin color but it does not make their race better or worse at the activity.
I could say white people are better than black people at being white. I can not disprove or prove this statement. I do not know what it is "like" to be white. Are you able to define whiteness? How about blackness? The only characteristic that it defines is the color of skins. When you rank the races, you imply the color of the skin has some magical characteristic related to the activity you are talking about that gives them some sort of advantage or disadvantage.
If I was a conservative working in politics I'd be skeptical working with the people who think this, especially after the grotesquely absurd slavery comment.
What do you think of prison labour?
Because that is effectively American Slavery v.2.0
I think there is a distinct difference between willfully committing a crime knowing you may be forced into working and being kidnapped and sold into slavery against your will. Your equivocating it to slavery is nothing more than an sensational appeal to emotion in order to garner support. Lastly, I'm not an expert on prison labor but for all intents and purposes its voluntary and in most cases paid. The pay is ***** but again one has the option to do nothing. You will not be beaten if you do not work. If you refuse to work, you'll be put in a jail cell. So yeah, your argument comparison to slavery is bull*****.
If you want to talk about laws that seem to discriminate against minorities...well, I have an idea for that. One, end the drug war. Two, address the reasons people are committing crime in the first place instead of worrying about how bad we are going to punish them.
Upon discovering America, Columbus wrote to Isabella and Ferdinand that he would enslave the native people: "their Highnesses may see that I shall give them as much gold as they need .... and slaves as many as they shall order to be shipped."
He then, during his time as governor of Hispanola, he enslaved the natives and brutally repressed any unrest through torture and execution. This enslavement was not just Columbus being a bad apple, but was authorized by Romanus Pontifex, the papal bull from 1454 which granted the Portuguese the right to reduce any pagans they discovered to "perpetual slavery."
None of which is implied or relevant when discussing the Redskins. (I'm talking about the football team, if you need me to be specific)
You don't just change the names of things because someone decided that name is offensive now. To me there is no reason to change how we refer to mentally handicapped people. Honestly... I don't even know the PC way to do it anymore. I don't understand why we can't just call them mentally or physically retarded like we used to. It's a true statement that has meaning. Yes mean people used that wording to refer to non-retarded people as insult... but that does not change the meaning of being retarded in the correct context. Kind of like how even though most of the time ***** in now a mean way to refer to a woman, it still means female dog when actually referring to a female dog.
Depending on whether you care about offending people, having a name that's offensive to people might be an excellent reason to change that name.
A lot of sports teams use animal names; are you suggesting that the [Randomtown] *****es should be an acceptable name for a sports team, because ***** is a perfectly legitimate term for a female dog?
Society will determine what is acceptable and not acceptable with their pocketbooks. Raising awareness of ones offensiveness is either going to change the public's opinion or not. The PR campaign has not worked for the past 30 years so Native Americans are pushing the government to help them now. Society has determined that Redskins is an acceptable name. The special interest does not always get want they want.
They've had 80 years to change the public's mind and they've repeatedly failed. You cant tell me we are racist society and refuse to listen to minority opinions and wont publicly stop supporting things we don't like. At what point will you realize that you are on the losing side of the argument? The public just does not see it the same way you and Native Americans do.
Yeah one that takes me back to owning land and people. Such terribly offensive words!
I'm offended by the word and so is my family, who are white southerners (as with many other southern white families who have to bear the guilt trip of slavery from the likes of you repeatedly, despite having nothing to do with it). Please explain to me why I should not be offended? Wait, you already have. I'm glad you can speak for me and my family. Do you care if I or my family is offended? For expediency I'm going to guess you do not care.
My family could careless about Cracker Jack just as they could careless about Redskins. We are smart enough to know Cracker Jack is not talking about white people and Redskins is not talking about Native Americans. I will not go around telling Native Americans how they should feel about a word, that is truly up to them. I do not think its reasonable for them to feel that way about a football team name and I do not think people should automatically vacate the name of their football team because the way a group of people feel about that name. When I call RGIII a Redskin, I'm not being insulting him, I'm simply identifying what team he play for. It may be insulting Tony Romo but it has nothing to do with Native Americans and everything to do with a football rivalry.
I'd be doing a disservice if I did not point out another trivialization of racism by an anti-racist. Its very clear that if you call a Native American a redskin, it's derogatory. Its very clear that if you call a white person a cracker, its derogatory. You think one is worse than the other. You seem to have contempt for a certain kind of racism and trivialize others thereby destroying and credibility you have on the matter. It seems you only object to racism when it suits you.
An argument that stands up to scrutiny.
I disagree that you've shown him to be rational.
Learning to pick cotton is not a rational argument as to why people abort their children or go to jail.
This implies black people have only two options, picking cotton or government subsidy. We know this to be untrue.
Do I need to explain why this is wrong?
I think in most cases the numbers are irrelevant. Correlation does not imply causation. I think it comes down to a simple exercise in logic.
Depends on the harm. We've been through this. If there is tangible proof of harm (namely monetary) an equitable amount money should be paid to the victim. I have not seen or heard of any tangible harm occurring to a Native American or Native Americans due to the Washington Redskins name. I personally do not consider feelings as tangible harm. If we are speaking legally, please make your point instead of asking 20 questions.
Whether a person thinks its rational does not it make a rational argument.
You are talking about a group of people who probably have never been around black people very much, never really attempted to learn about racism, diversity and equality. I do not imagine there is a lot of EO training on a ranch. It seems odd and hard to believe but he doesn't know what racism is and its obvious.
Its really easy to use critical thought and understand he is nothing more than an ignorant fool:
His entire argument is predicated on stereotypes which is easy to disprove. His statement is anything but rational when taken in objectively.
It does not matter if he believes it to be rational for it to not be racist. It has to pass objective scrutiny.
I do not speak in absolutes or try not too. Crashing pretty much laid it out where I stood using much better grammar. Finally, I think its time we as a society stopped talking about race in generalities, if for no other reason it leads to poor results.
I'll remove the wall of text and be a bit more blunt:
This quote was the end to any reasonable discussion we will have. If you do not view this statement by you as a racist statement, we have nothing to discuss. You measure the power of a racist slur by the color someones skin.. I'm not going to enter or address any of your comments when you have an obvious and explicit racist belief. You believe its right to measure the impact of racial slurs and you found it important enough to tell people about it and you continue to assail me with this belief as if I am wrong for not agreeing with this racist concept as if cracker and ****** offensiveness needs to be distinguished. The only logical reason to do this is to either to mitigate or exaggerate racism. I see no reason to do either. A racist slur is a racist slur, it should not matter if one is "just as bad" or "massive" or "as powerful".
There is a fundamental problem when you say ****** is worse than cracker. The purported degree of offensiveness of a racist slur is irrelevant. You want to make it relevant, why? You do not think cracker is a racist slur or is not offensive enough to be harmful or warrant any serious contempt. My contempt for the word is laughed off by you....and you have the gall to ask me to take you serious when you talk about racist slurs directed towards Native Americans? You don't care about racism, you care about Native Americans, which is okay but stop pretending. That's my ******* point.
There are generations of poor white people in the south eastern united states who have and continue to pay for the sins of their ancestors. They are constantly reminded about how horrible their ancestors were and how privileged they are to be white and if they dare speak up about any sort of injustice concerning racism, they are told to shut the **** up and laughed by others. The Pursuer is great example of this. Cracker is yet another reminder of things beyond our control yet you want to try and mitigate or trivialize this racism by comparing it to ******.
Oh yeah, I've never said I was correct, I've just called your statement(s) racist and logically incoherent. Keep laughing off a racist slur, its becoming of your argument.
Prevalence:
I think any time you have profit associated with diagnosis and treatment there are a not an insignificant amount of misdiagnoses.
Causes:
I think there are too many to adequately explain but obviously most are weighted towards physiological and psychological.
Treatment:
Same as prevalence but in my experience, its been all about developing coping mechanisms rather address the causes. These afflictions are part of us that we have to manage which is incredibly frustrating for me. This stigma associated with this stuff is still horrible and its not helped by the people who are taking advantage of it.
An inability to control focus is a great way to describe ADD. I've always been hyper and I think a large reason ADD people move fast is because they do not want to forget what they are doing or get in to a rush because they want to keep pace with their thoughts as least that's the way I feel.
I've been resistance to drugs treatment myself due to my nature of addiction. I've come to conclusion that most people have to accept they have these issues and learn to deal with them one way or another because their is no real cure.
First, I initially applied your logic to the offensiveness to a word, not the relevance. I made no determination on the relevance in my initial post. Try to keep that straight. I was pointing out this out to show that if we applied your logic we'd have to change the name of cracker jack (which is not talking about an edible cracker but rather a name for a white cartoon character and pop corn snack and obviously cracker is a pejorative as well) to which I find just as absurd as changing the name of the UNCF, NAACP, Redskins. If you want to say Cracker Jack is not similar to Redskin I'd believe you have logical inconsistency and bringing up cracker jack as the name of a white cartoon character of a non-cracker product is relevant to demonstrate this.
Consequently, we fundamentally disagree. You believe we should not use racial slurs at all, irrelevant of other contexts that may or may not exist out of respect to all people. I believe we are smart enough to know when the use of a word intended as derogatory or nothing more than a name for something. There really is no more for us to discuss. You think I lack compassion and understanding while I think you lack the ability to accept that people are intelligent enough to know the difference. There really is no other place we can go.
This pretty much says why cracker in cracker jack has to go, using your logic and obviously I find that absurd.
I think you missed this part in my unedited post:
Its actually quite funny you find fault with my world view on addiction. I bet it is also comical to the people who vehemently argue with me about most issues as they would probably say you are obviously unaware of my position on drugs and addiction and criminality but I digress, you are done with me and it's bull*****. Its bull***** we should remove prison sentences for most drug offenders.
Oh and the labor is voluntary. I wish I could say it was stimulating hearing all about the anti-racist meme's and rhetoric you've recited thus far but I've seen it all before and its mostly sensational bull***** used to rile up low-information voters.
Tell me, how many Native Americans have had systemic violence perpetrated against them? Before you go all history on me, I'm talking about the same generation of white people you are speaking about in your response. The current generation of Native Americans and White Americans are removed from the systemic violence you are speaking about. You are making the argument that white people have not faced systemic violence so their complaints are irrelevant. Does that make Native Americans arguments irrelevant as they have not faced systemic violence either?
We will ignore the continued oppression of white southern people as a direct result of punishing them for slavery that you your self perpetuate by not caring, never mind this also has debilitating effect on black people as well. There is a reason the south is poorer than the north, even today. Now, the likes of you will just tell me to shut up and take it. The difference between me and you is that I pretty much detest all racism and do not distinguish between the two You only detest certain kinds and it appears it is largely due to the race of the people its happening too.
You can find all the examples you want, I can find logical faults with them all. I've stated there may be situations out there where its reasonable to rank races that include sound and reasonable evidence but so far you've failed to find any, including this one.
I do not understand why you think it makes them better at it because they don't have to wear more black clothing. Their clothing nor their skin has anything to do with their skills or abilities as stage hands. You may say black people blend better than white people but then I would argue a white person can blend in just the same as a black person by applying makeup to their exposed skin. The point I'm making is, people do things differently for a variety of reasons, including skin color but it does not make their race better or worse at the activity.
I could say white people are better than black people at being white. I can not disprove or prove this statement. I do not know what it is "like" to be white. Are you able to define whiteness? How about blackness? The only characteristic that it defines is the color of skins. When you rank the races, you imply the color of the skin has some magical characteristic related to the activity you are talking about that gives them some sort of advantage or disadvantage.
I think there is a distinct difference between willfully committing a crime knowing you may be forced into working and being kidnapped and sold into slavery against your will. Your equivocating it to slavery is nothing more than an sensational appeal to emotion in order to garner support. Lastly, I'm not an expert on prison labor but for all intents and purposes its voluntary and in most cases paid. The pay is ***** but again one has the option to do nothing. You will not be beaten if you do not work. If you refuse to work, you'll be put in a jail cell. So yeah, your argument comparison to slavery is bull*****.
If you want to talk about laws that seem to discriminate against minorities...well, I have an idea for that. One, end the drug war. Two, address the reasons people are committing crime in the first place instead of worrying about how bad we are going to punish them.
None of which is implied or relevant when discussing the Redskins. (I'm talking about the football team, if you need me to be specific)
Society will determine what is acceptable and not acceptable with their pocketbooks. Raising awareness of ones offensiveness is either going to change the public's opinion or not. The PR campaign has not worked for the past 30 years so Native Americans are pushing the government to help them now. Society has determined that Redskins is an acceptable name. The special interest does not always get want they want.
They've had 80 years to change the public's mind and they've repeatedly failed. You cant tell me we are racist society and refuse to listen to minority opinions and wont publicly stop supporting things we don't like. At what point will you realize that you are on the losing side of the argument? The public just does not see it the same way you and Native Americans do.
I'm offended by the word and so is my family, who are white southerners (as with many other southern white families who have to bear the guilt trip of slavery from the likes of you repeatedly, despite having nothing to do with it). Please explain to me why I should not be offended? Wait, you already have. I'm glad you can speak for me and my family. Do you care if I or my family is offended? For expediency I'm going to guess you do not care.
My family could careless about Cracker Jack just as they could careless about Redskins. We are smart enough to know Cracker Jack is not talking about white people and Redskins is not talking about Native Americans. I will not go around telling Native Americans how they should feel about a word, that is truly up to them. I do not think its reasonable for them to feel that way about a football team name and I do not think people should automatically vacate the name of their football team because the way a group of people feel about that name. When I call RGIII a Redskin, I'm not being insulting him, I'm simply identifying what team he play for. It may be insulting Tony Romo but it has nothing to do with Native Americans and everything to do with a football rivalry.
I'd be doing a disservice if I did not point out another trivialization of racism by an anti-racist. Its very clear that if you call a Native American a redskin, it's derogatory. Its very clear that if you call a white person a cracker, its derogatory. You think one is worse than the other. You seem to have contempt for a certain kind of racism and trivialize others thereby destroying and credibility you have on the matter. It seems you only object to racism when it suits you.