Cliches and slurs
Can we please retire this horribly lame notion of “he died doing what he loved”? In many cases, it's not just horribly lame, it's very likely inaccurate.
For example, a guy dies while skydiving. Often, if not invariably, someone tries to bring comfort with the old, hoary, HDDWHL line. OK, wait a sec. Yes, he loved jumping out of planes, free falling in the air, and then floating to Earth under a perfectly functioning parachute. Great. But I'm willing to bet he did not love feeling a complete, heart-stopping panic upon realizing that his chute was screwed up, and that he did not love smashing full speed into the ground. In fact, I bet he just hated that.
Or the guy who gets killed by a shark while surfing. “Oh, well. At least HDDWHL,” some well-meaning but brain dead cliche-spewer will say. But, really? Sure, he loved being in the ocean, sitting on his board, waiting for that great wave, and then, catching it and gliding into the shore. Totally righteous, dude. But did he love being attacked by a giant, hungry fish? Did he love the sensation of having his leg munched on and then ripped off by a terrifying monster? I'm guessing no. Just a hunch.
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A lot of talk lately about the nickname of the Washington Redskins football. It happens periodically. There's really no getting around it. It's easily the most racist team name in sports. Yes, it's exactly the same as if there were the Washington Wetbacks or the Detroit Dagos, or—well, you can follow the example downward to its most blatant and ugly conclusions.
The Redskins, as always, defend the name by using the TD (the tradition defense), saying that the team has had that handle for decades, and now it's a proud part of Redskin tradition and blah, blah, blah. The fact that the tradition was begun by the original owner, an out-and-out racist of the worst kind, and one who was not hard to find in the '30s, is rarely mentioned. But basically, the team's defense is, “Hey folks, we've been racists for a long time here, so much so, in fact, that the ‘tradition' is too old to change. So kindly buzz off!”
The NFL owners, being a clique of jowly, mottled billionaires, won't do a thing to force a change. That much is clear and understood. But I wonder what wold happen if the Redskins new star quarterback, one RG3, said something along the lines of, “After my contract is up, I'd like to leave Washington. As a highly visible African-American, I'm simply not comfortable playing for a team with an insensitive and, for many, abhorrent nickname. I just will not. I would no sooner sign a new deal with the Redskins than I would sign with the Kansas City Kikes.”
Wonder what the Redskin brass would say to that?