Ed How do you Feel about this?

[uk_dave]

It was apparently named after someone who had the nickname "******", back in the 1920s. That was (apparently) how he was known to the local community, and (apparently) when the stadium was built, how the town wished to have him remembered.

I would suggest that it IS history revision. Local history, surely, but history all the same.

Then why not re-name it after the guy's full name rather than a nickname?

History revision? no

ETA: What if the name of the stand actually adversely affects the commercial prospects of the stadium? Would you insist that a commercial organisation keep an unpopular name for the product (I recall an elderly relative many years ago lamenting that she couldn't buy a colour of knitting wool known as '****** Brown' and I couldn't quite figure out why she should be so upset about a name change when obviously the company producing the wool didn't want to alienate a potential customer base by using an offensive name) even if it meant they were not going to reach as many people with their product?

 

[GreNME]

Ni$$er originally was just another word for black, egyptian based i think. The problem isnt the word but the associations that society puts on it.

This is completely false. The word is and was derogatory. You're conflating the insulting, dehumanizing term with its root word (history of the word).

 

[BTMO]

Then why not re-name it after the guy's full name rather than a nickname?

History revision? no

ETA: What if the name of the stand actually adversely affects the commercial prospects of the stadium? Would you insist that a commercial organisation keep an unpopular name for the product (I recall an elderly relative many years ago lamenting that she couldn't buy a colour of knitting wool known as '****** Brown' and I couldn't quite figure out why she should be so upset about a name change when obviously the company producing the wool didn't want to alienate a potential customer base by using an offensive name) even if it meant they were not going to reach as many people with their product?

I have had a bit of a read on wikipedia about the stand, and Edward Stanley Brown - the person who the stand was named after.

He is identified as "****** Brown" on his headstone. Clearly this is the name he was known as - if the town knew him as this nearly 100 years ago, and named the stadium after him in the sixties, it is very much revisionist to change it now.

How would you feel (for example) if they made a movie about the Dam Busters, and they renamed Gibson's dog "Rover" - and that was the code word they used.

Or decided "Hmmm... Germany is an ally now. I think we will re-write WW2 so that the leader of attack on the Dam is a woman named Dianne, and she can lead a single handed assault on the mustard gas factory at Baghdad. She'll use the code word 'Rainbow' - the name of her disabled daughter's goldfish"

And if you think THAT can't happen, then you haven't seen the movie "U-571"...

Don't get me wrong - I think it is wrong to offend people, and to use racially divisive language - but I think there is more to be gained by learning from history than from painting over it.

Oh, and to answer your second question, I doubt Townsville Rugby League will be affected by a name that has been on a stand since the 1960s. I think (and I lived in Queensland for a while some years back) that most people, if they noticed it, would think "what a strange anachronism", and open another beer.

 

[BPSCG]

A writer for the original Star Trek was racist.

 

[chillzero]

Isn't 'coon' short for raccoon ... or have I misunderstood when I read fond remembrances of childhood hunts with coon guns all these years?

 

[fuelair]

Either You're missing the irony in the post you quoted, or I'm missing it in yours.

At least one of them shoulda used a sarcastic smiley.

 

[fuelair]

I have had a bit of a read on wikipedia about the stand, and Edward Stanley Brown - the person who the stand was named after.

He is identified as "****** Brown" on his headstone. Clearly this is the name he was known as - if the town knew him as this nearly 100 years ago, and named the stadium after him in the sixties, it is very much revisionist to change it now.

How would you feel (for example) if they made a movie about the Dam Busters, and they renamed Gibson's dog "Rover" - and that was the code word they used.

Or decided "Hmmm... Germany is an ally now. I think we will re-write WW2 so that the leader of attack on the Dam is a woman named Dianne, and she can lead a single handed assault on the mustard gas factory at Baghdad. She'll use the code word 'Rainbow' - the name of her disabled daughter's goldfish"

And if you think THAT can't happen, then you haven't seen the movie "U-571"...

Don't get me wrong - I think it is wrong to offend people, and to use racially divisive language - but I think there is more to be gained by learning from history than from painting over it.

Oh, and to answer your second question, I doubt Townsville Rugby League will be affected by a name that has been on a stand since the 1960s. I think (and I lived in Queensland for a while some years back) that most people, if they noticed it, would think "what a strange anachronism", and open another beer.

Yes, U-571 was a really stupid idea.

 

[fuelair]

Isn't 'coon' short for raccoon ... or have I misunderstood when I read fond remembrances of childhood hunts with coon guns all these years?

Yes, but it is also one of many racist terms for blacks, so.......

 

[GreNME]

Isn't 'coon' short for raccoon ... or have I misunderstood when I read fond remembrances of childhood hunts with coon guns all these years?

Info on the use of "coon"

 

[chillzero]

ok, thanks for that info.
It doesn't seem to me to give any reason why a cheese that was named after a person should be renamed, though.

 

[fuelair]

ok, thanks for that info.
It doesn't seem to me to give any reason why a cheese that was named after a person should be renamed, though.

True.

On the other hand, for those who might not click on the info, I strongly suggest reading this book from one of the big three in Black Film Studies (Donald Bogle, Pearl Bowser and Thomas Cripps): Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. (New York: Continuum, 1973/1994), p.8.

 

[fuelair]

No idea why this went twice. Sorry!

 

[GreNME]

ok, thanks for that info.
It doesn't seem to me to give any reason why a cheese that was named after a person should be renamed, though.

Didn't see any mention of cheese in the post I replied to.

'Coon' as a word on its own isn't necessarily an epithet. When it's used to describe a black person it is. I wasn't suggesting that the cheese be renamed, I was giving you the delineation between the word in general use and the fairly strong epithet. As for the guy it was named after, it obviously falls in the former category and not the latter, as much as I can tell.

 

[chillzero]

Didn't see any mention of cheese in the post I replied to.

'Coon' as a word on its own isn't necessarily an epithet. When it's used to describe a black person it is. I wasn't suggesting that the cheese be renamed, I was giving you the delineation between the word in general use and the fairly strong epithet. As for the guy it was named after, it obviously falls in the former category and not the latter, as much as I can tell.

Yes, I understand that was what you were sharing with me.

My comment was aimed at the question raised in the OP - should the cheese be renamed, and I just don't see why it should.

 

[BTMO]

A writer for the original Star Trek was racist.

Back when I was in high school, I read a book by the guy who wrote the "Trouble with Tribbles" episode of Star Trek.

He told a story of the secretary of the above person - she introduced herself as "Gene L's coon".

Her name was Dorothy Fontana. She went on to write later episodes of TOS as DC Fontana.

 

[lionking]

This is completely false. The word is and was derogatory. You're conflating the insulting, dehumanizing term with its root word (history of the word).

I should really add that the "N" word is nowhere near as derogatory in Australia as the US. People still call black dogs by this name. You are aware you were responding to an indigenous Australian?

 

[Lucian]

This is completely false. The word is and was derogatory. You're conflating the insulting, dehumanizing term with its root word (history of the word).

Not according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

The word was initially used as a neutral term, and only began to acquire a derogatory connotation from the mid 18th cent. onwards (compare sense A. 1b). In standard English usage the word NEGRO n. had already become the usual neutral term by the end of the 17th cent.

 

[GreNME]

I should really add that the "N" word is nowhere near as derogatory in Australia as the US. People still call black dogs by this name. You are aware you were responding to an indigenous Australian?

It's an American-born word, directly meant to be derogatory. What's the point that it's less derogatory there? Less derogatory is still derogatory, and it's not the same as the root word it comes from.

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Not according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

You're conflating the word 'negro' with the epithet. It came about in the 18th century to refer to a slave, so the only sense it was 'neutral' was that the slaves weren't considered equal.

 

[lionking]

What's the point that it's less derogatory there?

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Ummmm, because the OP is about events here?

But you could really start a whole thread about words and phrases which are offensive in one country and/or culture and not in another.

 

[BTMO]

But you could really start a whole thread about words and phrases which are offensive in one country and/or culture and not in another.

I will put up my hand for "pakeha" - which means non-Maori New Zealander. Common usage is that it is applied only to "Europeans".

I have also been told, but have never seen an authoritative source for the usage, that it translates as "long pig".

I have a couple of issues with this.

Firstly, if pakeha DOES mean long pig (ie, cannibal food), then it is offensive, and was probably meant to be. A de-humanising term of the worst sort.

Secondly, I am not too aware of words to describe people of any particular race, chosen by a different race, that aren't considered offensive by at least some of the people it is aimed at. Feel free to think of examples for yourself.

Thirdly, it is applied unevenly. "Non-Maori" kind of makes sense - it is an "us and them" type of term. But NZ is a pretty diverse place culturally today - there are Asians, Africans, Europeans, North and South Americans and even Australians living here in fair numbers. The other races here get to decide what they call themselves. So-called pakeha New Zealanders don't.

For the record, I describe myself as "Australian".