Should the Washington Redskins Be Renamed the Washington Rednecks?

The Washington Redskins' name controversy

Wikipedians have outdone themselves in outlining the multiple aspects and perspectives of the Washington Redskins' name controversy. Personally, I have always interpreted the expression "redskin" as a racist slur. However, despite complaints, protests and a number of court cases, "Redskins" has survived as the name of the Washington NFL team since 1933. Justification and defense of the name include the fact that some Native Americans support its use and even use it themselves as an object of pride. Additionally, the expression's origins are etymologically neutral and only took on negative connotations from the way the locution has been used.

 

How language evolves

As I've pointed out elsewhere, in the evolution of language, usage trumps definitions and origins. How a word gets used eventually becomes its meaning. "Redskin," particularly as it has been dominantly used in American culture, is an intentional disparagement. Nonetheless, we might ask if "redskin" could be reappropriated reappropriated as have other insulting epithets over the years. For example, in the art world, the word "impressionist" was understood as a criticism until the painters to whom the disparagement was applied--Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Matisse--began to describe themselves as impressionists. Similarly, words like "Yankee," "Jesuit," "Protestant," and "Suffragette" were originally intended as insults but have been reappropriated as labels to be proud of. In more recent times, members of the LGBT community have begun to self-describe as "queer" and "dyke." Even "gay pride" would have, not so long ago, seemed a contradiction in terms--which, of course, is why the expression exists and is paraded today.

Red skins and black face

As with Blackface (see Blackface and Best Evidence), there is nothing inherently immoral about the expression "redskin." The locution is racist because it has a long history of derogatory usage, and the insult has gone hand-in-hand with the mistreatment and genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas.

Cancel culture

The first defense of "Redskins" to appear in my inbox was a video of a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist  who described the call to change the name as "cancel culture."  Merriam-Webster traces the origin of the expression "cancel culture" to "#MeToo and other movements."  It seems impossible not to notice that the people decrying "cancel culture" are typically privileged communicators:  celebrities, office-holding politicians,  journalists in the mainstream media, established authors, the already famous and affluent in general.  As my guru has pointed out to me, there is a difference between "free" speech and "privileged" speech.  Being a blogger for over seven years now and having written 104 posts which have been viewed 50579 times, I recognize that I am no competition for the Kardasians nor, at the other end of the spectrum, for Desmond Cole who reports that for two of his pieces as a freelance journalist writing for the Toronto Star: "each one had earned well over fifty thousand views"  (Cole, Desmond. The Skin We're In [p. 73]. Doubleday Canada. Kindle Edition).  In short, I appreciate the difference between "free" speech and "privileged" speech.

If you already enjoy some notoriety or you have the support network of a newspaper,  yours is a privileged position.  Whatever you do or say might put that privilege at risk.  Cole was eventually not employed by the Star (you can't be "fired" when you're a freelancer because you do not strictly speaking have a job) ostensibly for (overly?) actively supporting Black Lives Matter in Toronto.  Was his dismissal an example of "cancel culture"?   Or was it just a plain, old-fashioned case of being "let go," "your services are no longer required," "pack up your pencils," "here's your hat, what's your hurry!"?

Reductio ad absurdum

According to the Pulitzer laureate's reductio ad absurdum discourse, "cancel culture" is about hyper-sensitivity and alleged triggers. (Consider Do No Harm.) He goes on to suggest, ironically, that the name "Washington" should be changed because George Washington was a slave owner and a tobacco farmer. He might want to reconsider his irony (see Avoid Irony and What Is Irony?). In my country, Canada, the name and statues of our founding Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald, are under attack for his role in establishing residential schools and policies of assimilation of indigenous peoples.

The Washington Rednecks?

The Washington football team will eventually be renamed but no, the new name won't and shouldn't be the "Rednecks."  Such a switch would just be changing one racist epithet for another.  In fact, it could be rightly argued that the name "Washington Rednecks" would be a celebration of racism.  However, the question is an interesting thought experiment.  How many privileged white people would be happy with the choice of the name?  We need look no further than Jeff Foxworthy's early"redneck" jokes to get the gist of the expression's unflattering intentions. (As in:  "You might just be a redneck if you go to your family reunion to pick up women.")

However, the expression "redneck" (like "redskin") seems etymologically neutral.  A white farmer's red neck from a hard day working in the fields might even be considered an icon of pride.  Certainly, many white people have taken on the appellation as an object of pride.

People who are revolted by "cancel culture" and mocking of sensitivity seem to be showing signs of hyper-sensitivity themselves.  Whatever Washington's new name turns out to be, as my guru wisely advises, "It's always better to err on the side of empathy."

Addendum

Apparently, the leading contender for the new name is the "DC Sentinels"--the same name used for the fictional NFL team in the movie The Replacements.

The Pronoun Wars

Pronouns and antecedents

When I first heard about "the pronoun wars," I assumed the debate was about the old problem of the correct pronoun to use when "everyone" was the antecedent.  This is the related question that I put on the mid-term exam for the course on Applied Grammar I was teaching in 1994.

You have been asked to edit an official government document.  You have to decide what to do about the following sentence: 

"In the future every university student will be required to pay 51% of the cost of their education." 

If you decide to change the sentence (or not to change it), you will have to explain your decision to three people:  Mr. Boyle,  who is a strict grammarian; Ms. Doyle, who is a proud feminist, and Mrs. Murphy, who likes to see problems solved in a practical, common-sense fashion.Explain the problem with the sentence, and give your decision and justifications.  

Traditional grammar versus feminism

The traditional grammarian would insist that the antecedent "every student" was singular, and the pronoun which followed must be the singular "his."  The feminist would not accept that all university students should be identified with the masculine "his." Ultimately I was directing students to the "professional writer's" solution, which was to restructure the sentence to eliminate the problem and impasse. However, unbeknownst to me, in the same year, psycho-linguist Steven Pinker published The Language Instinct in which he argued "that everyone and they ["their" in my example] are not an 'antecedent' and a 'pronoun' referring to the same person in the world, which would force them to agree in number.  They are a 'quantifier' and a 'bound variable'."

Singular they

Consequently, Pinker concludes:  "There is no reason that the vernacular decision to borrow they, their, them for the task is any worse than the prescriptivists' recommendation of he, him, his.  Indeed, they has the advantage of embracing both sexes and feeling right in a wide variety of sentences."  The problem I was teaching my students to correct simply did not exist in terms of linguistics, but it did perhaps persist as a sociological problem at the time.  These days Pinker's solution seems to have gained consensus, and what is known as the "singular they" has certainly become commonplace.

Pronouns in the new millennia

However, my imagining of the "pronoun wars" came nowhere near the complexity and sensitivity of the conflict as it has recently played out online and in the media.  In my 1990s reflections, the proper pronoun to use when referring to "transgender" or  "non-binary" or "non-conforming" individuals never crossed my mind.

It is impossible to research this question without encountering the name Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto professor of psychology, who has parlayed his fifteen minutes of infamy for refusing to follow the University's transgender pronoun policy into a career as a viral presence on the internet and in the media.  My millennial counselor (my guru on all things post-2000) has strongly advised me against reading Peterson as a waste of my time.  Of course, that injunction has made me all the more curious.

Jordan Peterson:  victim or villain?

The obvious question:  why wouldn't Professor Peterson address his students in their preferred pronouns?   Isn't it just a matter of politeness to address people the way they want to be addressed?  Isn't that what we do with titles, names, nicknames, preferred middle names, etc?  The supreme irony in Peterson's interviews is that, despite the difficult lives (lives Peterson is making more difficult) of people who suffer the dysphoria of feeling or appearing that their genders have been misaligned, he manages to make himself appear the victim.

Peterson frequently refers to two letters he received from the University of Toronto which he manages to make sound quite dire.  Here are the letters in question:

https://thevarsity.ca/2016/10/24/u-of-t-letter-asks-jordan-peterson-to-respect-pronouns-stop-making-statements/

The gist of the letters is "you have been making some people uncomfortable, please stop." However, Peterson is quite right to point out that they invoked "the law." The second letter states, "The law in Ontario, specifically the Ontario Human Rights Code, protects against discrimination based on gender expression and gender identity."  This overkill invocation was an invitation to Peterson to escalate his opposition.

Pronouns for every gender identity?

Peterson typically makes the valid point that the pronoun shifts being proposed by LGBT Resource Centres seem impracticable and awkward.

HE/SHE	HIM/HER	HIS/HER	HIS/HERS	HIMSELF/HERSELF
zie	zim	zir	zis	zieself
sie	sie	hir	hirs	hirself
ey	em	eir	eirs	eirself
ve	ver	vis	vers	verself
tey	ter	tem	ters	terself
e	em	eir	eirs	emself

I am honestly confused by this table from the LGBT Resource Centre. Peterson claims that "in New York there are 31 protected gender identity categories."  I wondered if this was true, and if the number of new genders explained this plethora of pronouns.  There are over 100 pronouns in the English language.  By my count, around 40 of them might be affected by gender (presuming you need new versions of "they" and "you"). The idea of introducing 124 new pronouns into the English language is fantastical--exactly the point the project's detractors take delight in emphasizing.  Is this what advocates want or are asking for?  Do transgender individuals even care about pronouns?

Who's side are you on?

When I watched the TV Ontario episode of The Agenda with Steve Paikin on "Genders, Rights and Freedom of Speech" (which has itself become a source of controversy), I was surprised that the only transgender individual on the forum panel, Theryn Meyer, sided with Jordan Peterson in opposition to the University's pronoun policy (and the Human Rights legislation in both Ontario and Canada intended to prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals).

The Argument against "gender expression"

The intent of the recent changes to the Ontario Human Rights Code seems clear enough--and similar legislation is being proposed at the federal level and in various countries.  "Race, age, sex, and sexual orientation" seem evident categories, but I noted with interest that "The Code does not define creed" even though it is listed as a category to be protected from potential discrimination.  The newly added category of "gender identity and gender expression" is extremely vague and fluid.  It has been suggested (not entirely facetiously) that the legislation would open the door (literally) to the cisgender male using the women's locker room on the grounds that he is "expressing his female gender."

"Gender identity" and "gender expression" remain undefined

"Expression" and "identity" are problematic concepts (see "Be Yourself": Is This Really Good Advice? and "Be Yourself": Part II).  Apparently, the framers of the Code, decided to pass on the problem of definition to "the courts and tribunals," as they have done with "Creed."  Anywhere this subject is discussed, it is noted that "gender" is cultural and "sex" is biological (although some postmodern deconstructionists like to challenge the latter claim--see Deconstruction and "Ways of Talking).  "Gender" could be listed as a proscribed ground of discrimination without any reference to "expression" or "identity."

Is a new law necessary?

Just as sexual discrimination covers both men and women (even though the original impetus was discrimination against women), gender discrimination would cover every possibility from hyper masculinity to extreme femininity and every mix, variation and crossing in between--without necessarily making any reference to sex or identity or expression.  However, while this change might solve legal and discrimination issues, it does not address the question of pronouns.

Do we really need new pronouns?

Do we really need gender neutral pronouns?  Maybe.  In writing I find myself using "s/he" and "his/her" fairly frequently, or sometimes using "her" when the tradition is to use "he"--when talking about God, for example.  However, are transgender persons being served by the pronoun debate?  It seems the public sphere is being dominated by "experts" on the extreme fringes of the issue with little voice being given to the .6 percent of the population who might be personally affected.

Practical matters

I struggle to imagine myself asking someone "What pronouns do you use?"--as is recommended by LGBT Centres and legislators.  Would anyone, including a transgender person, be pleased with or even understand this question? In a personal interaction, it is highly unlikely that I would use a gendered pronoun with someone:  "you" is gender neutral, and we do not address people in the third person in English; i.e., "he/she," when we are speaking to them.

Gender binary is arbitrary (but so is language in general)

As I have commented elsewhere, the gender binary (he/she) is arbitrary and certainly isn't a necessity in the English language (see Falling in Love is Unprofessional).  Third person singular is the only gendered pronoun in English; therefore two pronouns "he/she," which expand morphological to his/her, him/her, herself/himself--a total of eight possibilities.  Not an enormous stumbling block for Anglophones, but French and other Romance languages add gender to every noun and adjective.  Is anyone seriously considering that some of the worlds most widely spoken languages are going to completely restructure themselves to become gender neutral in order to accommodate transgender individuals?

What really matters to the people most affected?

When I ask myself what is the pronoun debate really about, I come away with the conclusion that we are witnessing a variety of agendas--political agendas, academic and professional agendas, self-aggrandizing agendas--but relatively little focus on what might really matter to transgender people.  When Jordan Peterson claimed to fear that he might be accused of "hate speech" if he failed to use the correct pronouns, I thought this counterfactual claim to be farfetched.  Unfortunately his opponent in the debate, Nicolas Matt, a lecturer in Transgender Studies at the University of Toronto, was all too eager to confirm that refusing to use the required pronouns "was hate speech."

Are the pronoun wars helping or hurting LGBT individuals?

As I researched online to confirm Peterson's claim that New York had instituted "31 protected gender categories" what I immediately discovered in print and on Youtube were individuals gleefully mocking the notion of 31 different genders.  Since the point of the legislation is to protect the transgender non-conforming individuals from mockery and intimidation, I couldn't help but recognize that the legislation was providing the opportunity for widespread public mockery and intimidation.  I fault Jordan Peterson for using his authority as a professor and a psychologist, as well as a writer and intellectual, to give license to the willful ignorance of yahoos and trolls.  At the same time, LGBT communities have a lot of work to do to clarify and, I dare say, simplify their positions.  The legislated Orwellian threat of prison sentences for faulty pronouns is the wrong way to go and has encouraged a backlash against exactly the people the legislation was intended to support.

As I researched the claim of "31 protected gender categories," I eventually came across this New York City publication:

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/GenderID_Card2015.pdf

The "31 gender categories" are, in fact, an ostensive definition to explain "gender identity" and "gender expression" rather than new categories of gender.  The legislation will doubtlessly be difficult to implement, but perhaps we should all begin by attempting to understand it.

Facebook's 51 Genders