US Army tribal aircraft names are racist.....

I've just never really understood "Redskins". In the same way I've never understood "Whitey". Although I suppose "Screw Ochrey-with-freckle-chips " doesn't have the same ring.

If I DO ever see someone with red skin, I can promise you I'll take a picture, cause John Carpenter might be in it.
 
Boris Badenov said:
I basically agree with CropDuster, not for the first time. That said, if I were a Jew or a Gypsy (or a homosexual, or a commie, or...), I'd personally take it as a mark of pride if the Luftwaffe were zipping around in BF-109 "Israelite"s or FW-190 "Romany". Or maybe BF-110 "French"es, because, you know, they were both pretty much hopeless, but had verve.

That said, I'd still be trying to shoot them down, so.
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I've always preferred aircraft named after horses and pirates. Yet, I fear my predilection for the Mustang and Corsair has more to do with my childhood career choice fantasies than with the intrinsic awesomeness of my favorite aircraft.
 
Boris Badenov said:
I've just never really understood "Redskins". In the same way I've never understood "Whitey". Although I suppose "Screw Ochrey-with-freckle-chips " doesn't have the same ring.

If I DO ever see someone with red skin, I can promise you I'll take a picture, cause John Carpenter might be in it.
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boehner-300x200.jpg


Good lord, old chap. At least challenge us.
 
OK, I'm going to hold forth on this one, forgive me. Maybe it should be a different thread, but the absurdity of this seems emblematic of the absurdity of our national (or maybe even modern) dialectic on "race". Rational people are sandwiched in between these two competing absurd, anti-factual ideologies. One which says, essentially, "we're all the same, there is no genetic variation in human beings", and the other which claims that the variations in the human genome are predictive of, well, pretty much everything, ever. We're different, to a very small extent. It's meaningful in some ways. People from various ethnic groups and branches of humanity are susceptible to different diseases, genetic mutations, etc. If you want to get really edgy about it, it may be true that we even test (to an extremely small degree) differently in tests which test...well, whether or not you test differently, essentially. They don't seem to test much else, by any scientific standard. But one side is ready to set up the guillotine if you remark that, hey, Ethiopians sure seem to win a lot of Marathons, and the other side will garrote you in a heartbeat if you mention that, wow, Neil Tyson is a pretty smart guy. Or what have you.

Of course the truth is that very, very few of us are "purely" anything, anymore (as if it mattered), particularly in the developed world. Go deep enough in the woodpile, and there's someone who you'd look at and say "that guy ain't from around here". But oh, Lordy, don't screw with our perception of ourselves as members of some Tribe or another, or we'll absolutely lose our poop. Maybe we're not that Evolved, after all.

For my money, call your football team whatever you like. Anyone who has half a shaker of sense will recognize that all of these terms are outdated pseudo-science. And the rest? Well, who cares? What difference does it make?
 
Crop Duster said:
What Is Political Correctness? by Simon Waxman
This past Friday, I wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post discussing the christening of U.S. military equipment with American Indian names. I argue that the choice of these names functions as a subtle form of propaganda because it suggests that the American Indians who were systematically killed, displaced, and forcibly assimilated by whites were powerful rivals of the United States and its armed forces. It is notable that white America—through its armaments, sports mascots, warrior narratives, and other means—emphasizes the skill and aggressiveness with which some American Indians resisted theft and genocide, rather than the facts of those crimes. Everyone knows these facts at least in general terms, and most of us genuinely feel badly about them, but our response is to pay tribute to the martial prowess of our defeated enemies. This choice of emphasis concerns me—specifically, the political ramifications of construing victims of imperialism as worthy opponents in a fair fight.

The article was widely misinterpreted as a brief for political correctness. I may not have made my case clearly enough, but no doubt the headline and publicity tweet the Post’s editors wrote without consulting me—a common hazard of publishing—contributed to the misunderstanding. The Post characterized the naming scheme as “offensive” and a “slur of Native Americans,” but these are not my words, they do not accurately convey my meaning, and I repudiate them without reservation. I would never describe the naming scheme as a slur because I have no idea if anyone is offended by the decision to call a missile Tomahawk or a helicopter Chinook. It is not for me to say, I did not say it, and it makes no difference to my argument.

I myself abhor political correctness. But the PC charge is not only misplaced here. It also burns with irony. The critics so quick and strident with their accusation are reinforcing the very phenomenon—political correctness—they claim to despise.

Political correctness is a project of decontextualizing language. When we are politically correct, we police our words to ensure we don’t say or write the ones that some critical mass of people finds offensive regardless of how they are used. So detested are these words that speaking them in any context is considered insulting.

PC critics want the same thing the politically correct do: a radical disconnect of words from context.

A classic case is the word “ .” Thanks to overweening political correctness, you don’t hear it or see it in print even when you should: most mainstream journalists dare not use it even when reporting on its use by others. Instead the media censor it with bleeps and asterisks, resort to childish euphemisms such as “the n-word,” or contort their prose to avoid it. So deep is America’s hysteria that even saying something that sounds like can get a person in trouble. (“Hysteria,” incidentally, is a valuable term too often disparaged as sexist even when it is clearly not being used to advance a sexist agenda.)

This is foolish because it assumes that certain words have unalterable meanings, persistent regardless of context. These words cannot be employed in service of a symbol or story because their symbol and story are constant and inherent in them. Indeed, some words, such as and redskin, project meanings that are understood as pejorative (depending on who is saying them: context), but it is absurd to strike them from the language as a result, to refuse even to recognize their existence, and to reject them even for the purposes of educating and informing.

The politically correct demand—the radical disconnect of words from context—is precisely what my critics also demand. When one troll tweeted “Apache, Apache, Tomahawk, Redskin” at me, he did so, I assume, because he figured that they are not offensive words, but that I am oversensitive and would be insulted anyway. (In case it is not already clear: I am not insulted, on my own behalf or on anyone else’s.) That is to say, the sense of the word, from the troll’s perspective, is inherent in it. It is either actually offensive or it is not, no matter how it is used.

This is the essence of political correctness, and it is antithetical to my argument, which requires that we explore the context of use in order to grasp political narratives that unfold around and are predicated on language and symbols. More concretely, I am saying we should pay attention to context. My critics would rather ignore context and police language. They’d rather declare absolutely which words are offensive and which are not.

So, yes, someone in this debate is grasping for political correctness, but it is not me. My hope is to leave that sort of thinking as far behind as is possible and instead consider the reasons we tell the stories we do and the effects those stories have on our politics, whether or not those effects are intended.

In certain contexts, but not all, our naming tributes to American Indians can banish the discomfort, the sense of guilt that accompanies an uncompensated wrong, we ought to feel about the imperial nature of American conquest and the suffering it has caused. If we focused less on Indian bravery and combat skill and more on victimization, it would not be so easy to just acknowledge guilt and then shelve it in the backs of our minds. If we were not so comfortable, we would take up that guilt as a guiding star in the moral work of governance and accept that those who have been wronged are owed restitution and care, not just tribute and apology.

Sadly, however, reflexive political correctness is being marshaled in support of the political status quo and the historical readings that preserve it.
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If your explanation of your op-ed is longer than the op-ed, you realized that it was ...

nf4493.jpg
 
deadstick said:
If your explanation of your op-ed is longer than the op-ed, you realized that it was ...

nf4493.jpg
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Yes, sadly, but often humorously, it's true. If it can't be said in a sound byte, it will be "rebutted" with a Meme.
 
MikeD said:
The Army even screwed that one up.
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What a useless piece of machinery. Over powered for a trainer, underpowered for med-evac.
Non-combat capable. I hope somebody got a kickback for ordering those from Airbus.
 
Nark said:
What a useless piece of machinery. Over powered for a trainer, underpowered for med-evac.
Non-combat capable. I hope somebody got a kickback for ordering those from Airbus.
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How about the air conditioning fiasco?
 
Crop Duster said:
I've always preferred aircraft named after horses and pirates. Yet, I fear my predilection for the Mustang and Corsair has more to do with my childhood career choice fantasies than with the intrinsic awesomeness of my favorite aircraft.
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Well, I mean I think we can all agree that the FW190-A8 was just about the most badass prop fighter ever, and it was named after a bird. And the Bearcat doesn't even exist, to my knowledge. Now if it'd been the F8F ManBearCat....
 
MikeD said:
The Army even screwed that one up.
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Three times, too.

1) EC145 selection as the LUH
2) delivered without A/C when it can't be flown doors off/open (NTC had one of the first units)
3) choosing it as the primary trainer -- yes, the first helicopter the Rucker students will fly. IIRC touchdown autos are not authorized in the 145. "BUT it's a twin, you'll never have to autorotate."

It goes along with the Cheyenne, Comanche (LHX), ARH, OH58F -- all models of Army efficiency. And let's not forget this idea they can use 23,000 lb Apaches to run the Cav/Scout mission. Definitely got the best and the brightest running the show.
 
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