Redskins

So this starts with a semi-related story. In music theory class the other day, we were talking about pentatonic scales. In many traditional Asian styles of music, the pentatonic scale is used quite often. In the media, there is a riff that is associated with Asian stereotypes, but it didn't actually come from Asia.

Follow the link to here the riff, I promise you'll know what I'm talking about. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Asian_Riff_Accurate.mid

Anyway, my teacher goes on to describe things like this. Among his most despised is the Washington Redskins and the "Tomahawk Chop". I believe that this both of these are culturally insensitive and straight up rude. I want to do a series of blogs about this because there is a ton to look at. 

The Washington Redskins name is among the most offensive and it seems that the managers of the team avoid the offensive reality of their name. "Redskin" is a racial epithet. There is no debate that "redskin" is an r-word for Native Americans similar to the n-word for Black people. I try to imagine if a football team was called the "rabbis" and their mascot was exaggerated Jewish stereotypes. I don't think the Jewish community would be too happy about that. 

If you read this, please comment. I want to hear other opinions.