I went to high school. Did you know that? My high school was one of those places where football seemed more important than life, and if you made the mistake of playing in the band you were dirt, and people believed that “school spirit” was an actual real, important thing, and our mascot was an insulting racial slur. Needless to say, graduation day still rates as one of the happiest days of my life. It meant I never had to go back to that hole in the universe again.
It wasn’t all bad. I made a number of life long friends. It’s just that most of those friends hated the entire four year experience just as much as I did.
Yesterday I was added to a Facebook group titled Racially Offensive Slur Against Native Americans… Forever. Except replace the Racially Offensive Slur Against Native Americans part with the name of our team. Get it? My newsfeed has since been littered with protests against the possibility of changing the school team name to something that isn’t insulting to an entire race of people. How dare they change the name! How dare they try to teach kids to respect other people! No! We must guarantee that all future generations of kids in town will also look back on the history of our proud land and flip the double freedom rockets and yell a hearty, “Fuck You!” To those inferior savages who had the audacity to live here first! It’s tradition! It’s our school history!
Kiss. My. Ass.
As I removed myself from this particular group I tried thinking of names I could suggest as alternatives to racism. Try to imagine these names being cheered at your next pep rally:
Your life will peak at 17 because you felt football was more important than education!
Meatheads throw ball!
Teenage Alcoholics!
Date Rapes!
Idiotic Stereotypes!
I can think of a few more, but those are probably my top five right now. The moral of the story here is, grow up and don’t institutionalize racism. Stop being assholes. Teach respect.
Oh, and also get over yourselves.
Inside the Red Head's Head 