I can remember the days when the acronym PC stood for Personal Computer. It was at the dawning of the computer age before social media, the internet or even cell phones. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there were computers before that, for sure, we just didn’t know what they were. I can remember a show called the $64,000 Question which featured a twelve year old genius named Teddy something or another who had built a computer in a shoe box. Since nobody knew what a computer should look like, we were impressed by the little box with D cell batteries and wires running everywhere. It was only later that we learned that one of the few actual working computers in the world was housed in a three story building with a team of maintenance people working 24/7 to keep it running. So little Teddy’s shoe box computer would have been impressive had it been real. Later it was revealed that this twelve year old genius was given the answers to the show’s questions and finally that the whole thing was a scam and everyone involved was a cheater. We were shocked! But as I said, that was before social media and the internet and before cheating became so common that it is no longer shocking. Now we simply say it is not “Politically Correct” or PC and no one is particularly shocked. That doesn’t mean we are not scandalized by behavior that is not PC.
Racism, racial epithets and less than flattering references to ethnic groups are all so un-PC that the slightest mention can cause huge disturbances. For example, the use of the name Redskins for the Washington Redskins Football team has recently come under fire from the U. S. Congress. The same Congress that not too long ago decided that Native American people should be forcibly relocated from their historic tribal lands to a place where no white man wanted to live at the time, Oklahoma, now feels that using the name Redskins for their football team is demeaning to Native American people and should be banned.
What many people don’t realize is that we in Oklahoma have the same problem on a much larger scale. According to the newest place mat at the famous Hammett House Restaurant in Claremore, the name Oklahoma comes from the Osage words “okla” meaning red, and “humma” meaning people. Yes, that’s right, Oklahoma means “red people”. How the spelling got changed from humma to homa was not adequately explained, but Oklahomans don’t seem to be troubled much by spelling so I suspect one is about as good as the other to most people.
I wonder why a football team called Redskins upsets the sensitivities of our lawmakers so much while a state called red people doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is language itself that makes the difference. Redskin in English sounds much harsher than Oklahoma in a foreign language. (Now here is where my dilemma begins. Osage is a Native American language so it is not really foreign but native. English is our native language, brought from another country, so not really native but foreign.) My point is, everyone knows what Redskin means, hardly anyone, until now, knew what Oklahoma means.
I’m suggesting that Washington solve its problem the way Oklahoma did, by masking its racial epithets in an unfamiliar language. Translate the name into French. Who could be offended by Washington Peaux Rouges? I mean who could even pronounce it? What about Washington Rot Haut in German? Washington Piel Roja might still cause problems since more people there probably speak Spanish than English. Latin is a “dead language”. Who is left to be offended by Washington Red Pelles? Or how many Afrikaners will attend a Washington Rod Velle game? The obscure Danish Washington Rode Skind is close enough that fans could still relate and the logo on team merchandise could be easily changed.
But for my money, a proven winner would be my choice, The Washington Oklahomans.
