One
student at Miami University of Ohio wants a bar to change the name of a
popular drink based off the school's old mascot.
In a letter to the editor published in the Miami Student , senior Anna
Feldman calls on
The Woods,
known by students as “
New Bar,”
to change the name of the drink known as "the redskin.” Miami
University of Ohio’s mascot was the Redskins until 1997, when
controversy over the name caused the school to change the mascot to the
Redhawks.
“If
you are too emotionally unstable to order a cheap alcoholic drink at a
bar and get so offended by the ‘violent past’ that the word promotes,
then you are not prepared for the real world, moreover to be in an
institution of higher learning,” one commenter wrote.
Now that we all know your drink name is offensive, I have no
doubt
you’ll take the swiftest action to rename it." Tweet
This
The open letter to the bar outlines the history of the term redskin,
writing that the word had a negative connotation and was used to
degrade Native Americans. Senior Anna Lucia Feldman, the author of the
letter, writes that “the colonial government offered payment for the
heads and scalps of Native Americans and redskins became slang for
these scalps.”
“Now that we all know your drink name is offensive, I have no doubt
you’ll take the swiftest action to rename it. I’ve taken the liberty to
brainstorm some replacement name suggestions that will appeal to Miami
students. You can take one of them, or even set up a voting contest for
a new, less genocide-y name,” Feldman wrote.
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