My tenth-grade science teacher was a short, ugly, middle-aged junkie who lived in the slums on the wrong side of town. But I’m not allowed to say that anymore.
Instead, political correctness dictates that I write something like, “My high school pedagogue of advanced scientific theories was an unconventional-looking, vertically, and chronologically challenged male with a substance abuse dependency who lived in an economically deprived part of the propinquity.
There. Does that sound better? Hmmm… Not to me.
What set me off on this ridiculous diatribe was the deflating news that my favorite California ski resort is succumbing to pressure to change its name.[1] By the start of the next ski season, Squaw Valley (site of the 1960 Winter Olympics) will be no more. Instead, it will likely be named Indigenous North American Native Woman of the Lowlands. It has a nice ring to it, but it’s going to be tough fitting the entire name on the front of a ski sweater or coffee mug.
Me big chief. You squaw
Unbeknownst to me, “the term squaw has been universally considered offensive by indigenous groups in America due to its use for hundreds of years in a derogatory context, that demeans Native American women.”[2] So, Squaw Valley’s management threw in the towel and announced,
“After extensive research into the etymology and history of the term “squaw,” both generally and specifically with respect to Squaw Valley, company leadership has decided it is time to drop the derogatory and offensive term “squaw” from the destination’s name.”– Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows Resort
Earlier this year, the Cleveland Indians baseball team announced that they’ll be changing their team’s century-old name to a “new, non-Native American” moniker after the close of the 2021 season “As a result of that process, we have decided to move forward with changing the current team name and determining a new non-Native American based name for the franchise,” the team said in a statement. “We believe our organization is at its best when we can unify our community and bring people together — and we believe a new name will allow us to do this more fully.”[3]
It shouldn’t be hard to come up with something. After all, Cleveland is famous for its Pierogis, City Chicken, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, actor Drew Carey, the Lake Erie Tall Ships, Polka, Amish country, and Fish Fries. But I doubt they’ll include any of them in their new name. Like it or not, the Cleveland City Chickens, Cleveland Polka Kings, or the Cleveland Amish lack the snap of the Cleveland Indians.
German Shepherds, Empire biscuits and Freedom fries
This isn’t the first incident that riled my sense of multicultural sensitivity. During World War I, the German Shepherd breed of dog was renamed the Alsatian, and German biscuits were renamed Empire biscuits due to strong anti-German sentiment. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Freedom fries was a short-lived political euphemism for French fries, used by some to express their disapproval of the French opposition to the invasion.[4]
More recently, The Dixie Chicks streamlined their name to The Chicks and the Washington Redskins football team changed theirs to… you guessed it! The Washington Football Team. Ho hum… Personally, I think they should have used the popular redskin potato. At least they’d have an interesting, ready-made logo. But it wasn’t to be.
When being economical with the truth gets you financially restructured resulting in being involuntarily leisured, and residentially flexible, we’ve missed the entire concept of communication.
The point is, we’ve become a nation of mamby-pamby lightweights, where almost everything in our culture is under fire for being inappropriate or offensive. As recently as the late 1950s, members of our Greatest Generation came home from the second world war, routinely integrating slurs like Chinamen, krauts, beaners, and fairies with the clap, into their everyday vocabulary and nobody thought any the less of them. As a schoolboy in the 1950s, I remember non-athletic boys being taunted because they ran like a girl or they looked like a spaz. Granted, those changes did need to be made.
What’s in a name?
Walt Disney’s 1937 film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, could never have been made today. The title alone is offensive to Little People of America and would have had to have been changed to Snow White and the Seven People of Short Stature. The original suggestions for the names of the seven curmudgeons ran the gambit from Jumpy, Deafy, Dizzey, Hickey, Wheezy, Baldy, to Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Swift, Lazy, Puffy, Stuffy, Tubby, Shorty, and Burpy[5] to every other human affliction known to man. I’m sure the revamped names would have been boring as hell.
We’ve gone overboard. When being economical with the truth gets you financially restructured resulting in being involuntarily leisured, and residentially flexible, we’ve missed the entire concept of communication.[6] When I knock over an end table while texting, shouldn’t I be ridiculed for being clumsy instead of being uniquely coordinated? If I’ve become disoriented while driving to a restaurant, shouldn’t I be man enough to admit that I’m lost instead of temporarily and geographically disorientated?
I find it ironic that we now hear terms like nipple, penis, tit, and vagina on television sitcoms, but have to resort to labeling someone as being a big-boned, hearing impaired, sight impaired, substance abuser, who is nasally gifted instead of a fat, deaf and blind drug addict with a big nose. These days, virtually every term using the prefix “black” is off-limits; which leaves us with pariah, chalkboard, and banned instead of black sheep, blackboard, and blacklisted.
The Political Correctness Patrol goes after public city names
Finally, back in 2017, The Courier Post[7] said, “The political correctness patrol has gone after the expression of religious beliefs, particularly when they determine that those beliefs get too close to public places or events. Maybe they should start challenging the names of the 54 public cities in the United States named after Catholic saints. You know, those little-known places of St. Louis, San Antonio, St. Augustine, San Francisco, etc.” I can’t wait to see the results.
My hope is that before we all become too chronologically challenged, we’ll recognize the limited value of going overboard while tip-toeing around delicate monikers in favor of calling a spade a spade — which, depending on how you use it, can be an off-limits term.
I only pray that happens by the time I’ve become terminally unavailable.
[1] S**** Valley | Alpine Meadows, CA, Renaming Update: New Name Will be Announced in Early Fall
[2] National Museum of the American Indian (2007). Do All Indians Live in Tipis?. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978–0–06–115301–3.
[3] Cleveland Indians to change team name after 2021 baseball season — https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cleveland-reportedly-change-name-its-baseball-team-n1251070
[4] “Over Here: World War I on the Home Front”. Digital History. Archived from the original on 2006–08–13. Retrieved 2006–07–12.
[5] Bob Thomas, Disney’s Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast (Hyperion, New York, 1991) ISBN 1–56282–899–1
[6] Translation: Lying will get you fired, become unemployed, and causing you to lose your home.
[7] https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/11/16/letter-wrong-names-wrong-heroes/873212001/
