In “Slinging a racial slur? Oh, where is thy sting” (Commentary, March 17), Clarence Page sounded frustrated and troubled that the Fightin’ Whities team name is not having the desired effect that many (Page calls them activists and busybodies)thought it would.
Looking for an explanation, Page offers that maybe it is the sender who really defines whether something is a racial slur, and continues by speculating that the phrase might cause more white anxiety in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.
Somehow I find the thought of Mugabe creating a rally cry extolling the fighting qualities of Zimbabwe’s whites ridiculous. Mugabe wants the whites cowed, if not dead. The phrase “Fightin’ Whities” would actually be more positive toward whites in the context of Zimbabwe’s current political crisis than it is apparently being found here.
Page misses the real lesson, which is “be careful what you ask for.” Do we really want to remove all American Indian references from team names, school names, campgrounds, streets, states, and on and on?
The majority of Native American have it right when they tell pollsters they disagree with those who wish to find race issues in everything. When we name something, especially things that we associate personally with, it is because we are looking for an affinity to the character traits found in that name. Why, then, are activists (Page says is he among them) trying to divide people into exclusive quarreling groups?
