franklyphoto

[franklyphoto]

Just a #birthday boy on his bike riding some blustery November miles. #latergram (at Three Creeks Park)

[franklyphoto]

Good morning.

[franklyphoto]

Good to be back visiting the the good folks at #SDState — a place that has been, is and will continue to be part of my life's #journey. (at South Dakota State University)

[franklyphoto]

Hello, big skies of my South Dakota #homeland. (at I-90 South Dakota)

[franklyphoto]

Good morning, #Iowa. (at Interstate 380)

[franklyphoto]

A little backyard #macrophotography with the #iPhone7 shooting through a reversed 35mm f/2 @canonusa lens.

[franklyphoto]

#Art is everywhere in #NOLA. Art of Professor Longhair (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Longhair) endures on Decatur Street. (at Decatur Street)

[franklyphoto]

Hotel hallway art. Sleep tight! #nightmarefuel (at Sheraton New Orleans Hotel)

[franklyphoto]

Symbiotic energy between @twentyonepilots and their fans is second to none. Stellar show! (at US Bank Arena)

[franklyphoto]

Why are you still asking, “Is ‘Redskins’ offensive?”

A bounty of forty pounds for the scalp of a Native American man or male child over the age of 12.

Twenty pounds for the scalp of any Native American female or a child under the age of 12.

In 1755, that’s how much money colonists were paid for their proof that they’d killed an “Indian” adult or child.

In 1863, the Winona (Minn.) Daily Republican advertised that the state would pay settlers a $200 bounty for any “red-skin.”

These are the brutal and obscene origins of the term “redskin” — cash for the lives of men, for the scalps of women.

For the lives and scalps of children.

Last week, in 2016, the Washington Post unveiled a commissioned poll purporting to show that barely a double-digit percentage of “ordinary Indians” have been “persuaded” by a “national movement” to be “offended by Redskins name.” In that poll, they asked, “As a (self-identifying) Native American, do you find (Redskins) offensive, or doesn’t it bother you?”

The next day, the New York Times began conducting their own informal online poll, asking their readers, “Do you find the Washington Redskins name offensive?” And, “Who should decide if a word is a slur?”

But in 2016, those questions were answered long ago.

While there’s little doubt that the historical practice of paying cash for the scalps, or “redskins,” of children is obscene, the word is offensive even when measured by the literary yardstick of today’s standards.

That brutal term and NFL team’s namesake was called “derogatory slang” by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when it ruled in its 2014 rejection of a trademark application.

Six months later, that same office called the word “disparaging” when it cancelled six of the NFL team’s trademarks. Little more than a year later, a U.S. District judge upheld the trademark ruling, noting that Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary — 117 years earlier — had “defined the word as ‘often contemptuous.’”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “redskin” as “usually offensive.” That definition is echoed by the Oxford Dictionaries’ entry which also calls the word “dated.” Even Webster’s New World College Dictionary, which the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook itself claims is and has been its “first reference for spelling, style, usage and foreign geographic names for decades,” notes that the word is “now considered by many to be an offensive term.”

The AP’s “writing style guide for journalists” has numerous entries for derogatory terms and obscenities. While there’s not a specific stylebook entry for “redskins,” there are entries for words like “colored” (“…considered derogatory and should not be used.”), “gringo” (“A derogatory term for a foreigner, especially an American.”), “redneck” (“It refers to poor, white rural residents of the South and often is a derogatory term.”), and “hillbilly (“Usually a derogatory term for an Appalachian backwoods or mountain person.”).

In general, the stylebook flatly directs journalists to “not use a derogatory term except in extremely rare circumstances — when it is crucial to the story or the understanding of a news event” and to “not use (obscenities, profanities and vulgarities) in stories unless they are part of direct quotations and there is a compelling reason for them.”

Is the word offensive? This question has been answered for decades by tribes like the Osage Nation, individuals like Suzan Harjo, dictionaries like Merriam-Webster, organizations like the National Congress of American Indians, media organizations like The Seattle Times and individual journalists like USA Today’s Christine Brennan.

Yes. It is offensive.

More recently, we’ve learned how harmful it is.

The Council of the American Sociological Association released a statement in 2007 that called “for discontinuing the use of Native American nicknames, logos and mascots in sport” because of their “harmful” nature that “reflect and reinforce misleading stereotypes of Native Americans.”

Last month, researchers from the University of Montana, University of Washington and Washington State University published the results of a study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology that “is perhaps the first demonstration of the adverse effects of exposure to ethnic brand imagery — specifically American Indian sports mascots — in the broader population."

“Redskin” is a word with historically violent and obscene origins. It has been defined as derogatory in historic and modern reference materials. It’s also demonstrably harmful to today’s and future generations of Americans, not just Native Americans.

In 1755, the bounty for the scalp of a Native American child was 20 pounds.

In 2016, why are you still asking if “redskins” is offensive?

[franklyphoto]

Today's creepy #thrift store find. We left her on the shelf to haunt someone else's home. #shiver (at Ohio Thrift Stores)

[franklyphoto]

A #dandelion puff makes for a fun #macrophotography subject. Made with an #iPhone6 through a reversed 35mm @CanonUSA lens.

[franklyphoto]

The #Easter Bunny skipped our house this morning so it's a good thing I have my own stash of #Peeps for nomming. In the immortal words of the Queen of Hearts: Off with their heads!

[franklyphoto]

I like how some of my most popular @instagram photos feature elements of what made 2015 the year it was for me, including the work-issued #Nikon gear I turned in, the personal #Canon gear I picked up, the guitars I've continued to pick and pick up and of course the #Chucks that have carried me on this journey. #2015bestnine

[franklyphoto]

My granddaughter gazes overhead in the aquarium tunnel. #jj_forum_1430 (at Newport Aquarium)

[franklyphoto]

Hotel elevator fun with mirrors self-portrait. (at Embassy Suites Cincinnati RiverCenter)

[franklyphoto]

Raining and near 60° in Ohio — nearest #cold for today's theme was the ice maker in our freezer. #jj_forum_1425