Kicking Custer's Ass

The question of the Washington NFL Franchise's nickname is still open according to some. I am going to try to present a shamanic interpretation of the word "Redskin" and argue in support of the nickname. Do a little vision-questing.

Woke Postulate: The term "Redskin" represents the extermination of Native America. Retort: The claim Native Americans were exterminated like pests is false. Native America still exists and was not wiped out. That claim is White Narcissism. 

In other words, the claims of the Woke Community that Native Americans were victims of White Supremacy is a "projection" of the Woke Community's own supremacist/narcissist ideation. The defensive self-infatuation of the Woke White. "I'm not like that."

You are precisely THAT. Claiming the Natives were wiped out is a declaration of victory by Woke Whites. The True Supremacists.

Native America still exists because of an insurgency led by people the Whites, out of frustration and stress related brain fog, called "Redskins". You don't trash talk someone you are routing. You trash talk someone who is kicking your ass. 

It is unsurprising some Natives adopted the name proudly because they knew intuitively it was an expression of defeat on the part of the Whites. "I am a Redskin" equaled "I am your ass-kicker."

Somebody somewhere, it wasn't me, said something like "Isn't every Cowboy game an exercise in kicking Custer's ass?" A Little Bighorn re-enactment?

Football is just a game. I don't know that it is the proper venue for understanding history. Or keeping memory alive.

But isn't it interesting an attempt was made to wipe out the memory of the Washington Redskins. George Armstrong Custer and Andrew Jackson, citing supremacist moral authority, attempted to wipe out real Native America. They can't even allow the vaguest notion of an insurgent Native America. That would indeed contradict the narcissistic myth of manifest destiny and American Conquistadorial Exceptionalism.

Maybe there is a deeper down unconscious Jungian thing going on. That the extermination of the Washington Redskins symbolizes the successful extermination of Native Americans.  

Woke America no doubt would have made Custer proud.

It seems to me John Riggins, in his recent post at MegaRiggins, was correct in that the Washington NFL Franchise should negotiate with the Tribes. Part ownership. Profit sharing. Taking an active role in Native concerns. The disappearances of Native women and children. Putting a Native American on the Board.

And in some way celebrating the fact Native America is still alive, was not exterminated, and ultimately will flourish again. 

Just what we fans want for the Redskin Football Team.

Football History Not Human History

The talk about the term "Redskin" is interesting. 

In my last post, I talked a little about the term's origins. It really is a term evocative of the failure of White Conquest of the North American Continent. The term is a sign of Native American insurrectional success.

It was not meant as a compliment. It is a racial epithet. Possibly you could argue that saying it is a sign of insurrectional success is trying to assimilate even Native American resistance and make light of it. You can not make light of the price American Natives paid fighting White gluttony and the racist narcissism of manifest destiny.

It gets uglier. The moral narcissism of today's Authoritarian Age places America at the center of an inquisitorial storm of ignorance. Cloaking themselves in inquisitorial garb, the instant outrage community slaughters any free speaker who dares deviate from the official moral policy. It is first strike narcissism. The plain view doctrine applies. The denunciators set themselves up as morally perfect and in the process are indulging in moral self-love of masturbatory proportions.

Perhaps that joy is born from the delusion that one will be spared being designated a racist. Shakespeare comes to mind. Methinks they doth protest too much. Making a theatrical performance of moral rectitude is a sign to me you are guilty of the crimes you accuse others of. I'd beware of any White NFL commentator taking a haughty view of the term "Redskin". Genetically, they cannot escape being caught up in a race warfare cage as they are contending they are a mutation in the human genome, being of course, the first morally perfect White Men.

That does not escape White Supremacy. That does not escape Manifest Destiny. It is damned indecent of you to stare Native Americans in the face and claim moral perfection since that was what your genocidal, my genocidal, ancestors did.

There is something passing strange about this. Many advocates of slaughtering Native Americans were Christians. Including, I'm assuming, the Chief Architect of Genocidal Aims, President Andrew Jackson. Fundamental Christian Cynicism opines that "All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God." How one gets the moral perfection of manifest destiny out of that is hard to fathom.

The human race has always been fiendish from the very beginning. There has been little evolution in that regard. The sense of moral outrage which comes from moral narcissism is the preamble to destruction of the planet. Moral Perfectionism is therefore the royal road to human fiendishness.

Human history, and the term "Redskin", does a disservice to football history. The term "Redskin" is historically explosive, morally complex, and does not describe the football "Redskins" in any way, shape or form. For the Washington Commanders to go back to that Nickname would reanimate that confusion and the media's theatrical moral contempt for all things Washington Football. Needless political trash. And a waste of time and energy.

That's why I advocate a nickname of Burgundy and Gold. In honor of the good men who wore those colors, played good football, and who deserve our remembrance.

The Commanders Will Have to Make a Name for Themselves

I'm not sure what the beef is about the Washington NFL franchise's nickname. It has to be Snyder Hatred.

Because it seems to me that "Commanders" is about as generic, therefore politically uncontroversial, as a nickname can get. I suppose if you are anti-war you might find it militaristic. That is if you equate being anti-war with being anti-military. I'm anti-war but not anti-military. I'm stiffly against Chickenhawk pro-war ivory tower types writing academic screeds about projecting power and poking bears playing G.I. Joes with our men and women in uniform. Sending everybody's kid to war but their own.

Everybody bleeds for their theories but them.

I suppose the same situation happens with the word "Warriors". There are sports writers who wince at war terminology being used in football. Football is a war substitute. So is Chess. If the drive to murder people gets processed in sports like football or hocky or MMA and does not escalate to the level of war I'd say let's do sports. It's an old psychoanalytic process called sublimation and it contributes to de-escalation. It is a good. It is a virtue. 

People say we're human beings and not animals. But I'd contest that as well. It is obvious from the constant horror championed by the News that human beings are beasts. Even rabid lions seem to have better self-control.

Unless we make the conversion to cyborgism, we will always have as a task of living the job of taming our animal nature. The desire to be superhuman or transhuman is not a desire but a hatred. A hatred of the self. A hatred of animals. A hatred of biology. A hatred of life. 

Ultimately, it is a cop out and a heavy loss. To augment or destroy entirely our animal nature. The value of our animal nature lies in its being a classroom to learn and practice the virtues. It is a challenging process and it is lifelong. But if you develop a handle on your animal nature you have a shot at the harmony you think you are getting by automating your animality. That's a harmony with no work behind it and no real education. 

In fact, it is the opposite of education. It is delusion. Not to mention dead as a door nail.

So what is in a name? Why do football? Seems like you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. The name will always be outrageous because football itself is inexcusable. So is your animal nature. So are animals.

Animal abuse is always emblematic of profound self-hatred. Just because we can now abuse our animal nature in highly technological ways doesn't mean the abuse is justified. And just because we can complete the transition from human to machine doesn't make it any less a murder than blowing somebody's head off.

Seems like if you apologize for the name you apologize for the sport. And the NFL is sometimes insultingly image conscious so much so that why you do football gets lost in green room make-up.  

Mr. T once said: "I pity the fool who tries to take what I got."

That's football. People are going to try to take what you got. They have agressive feelings toward you. They want to beat you to a pulp. Mr. T accepts the challenge and meets it head on. He's got to have discipline. He can't overextend. He can't punch himself to exhaustion. 

You have to deal with fear, anger, outrage, pain, failure, and success. Sometimes you roll. Sometimes you endure. Sometimes you disgrace yourself. But you walk out at the end. And you've done something. You overcame or you will learn to overcome another day.

And whole populations haven't been blown out of existence because you are too ruling class to get your hands dirty.

It would have been nice to find a name that tied into and/or honored the memory of the players of the Redskin Era. They built a heritage and a following. They were exemplars of the football virtues. They were themselves "commanding" presences. 

But outside of keeping the colors or even audaciously naming the team "The Washington Burgundy and Gold," I don't see how a name can do the job of claiming that heritage.

Which in a sense is good. I am arguing for the desirability of the "strenuous life" here.

That means it just may be the Commanders will have to make a name for themselves.