(Somewhere Saint Tommy Douglas is exclaiming: “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”)
Apropos of nothing….
Simon Fraser University is currently consumed with whether to rename SFU sports teams from “SFU clans” to something else, “out of respect,” according to the initiator, philosophy professor Holly Andersen, for US university teams who might think SFU was supporting the Ku Klux Klan.
The team names date from SFU’s founding in 1965, with explicit connection to the Fraser clan. The use of “clan” honours that connection to the Scottish clan system. The word is centuries old, with OED citations back to the 15th century, and has many uses in literature. It is used by and about BC and other First Nations to describe in English their cultural organization. It of course makes distinctions, but these are in no way discriminatory. Any US student who thinks the word is suggestive of the KKK perhaps needs their eyes opened to the wider world.
Prof. Andersen’s premise appears to be that the core or primary meaning of “clan” is racist, as in KKK. Eliminating the use of “clan” would, ironically, accomplish exactly that effect, leaving “Klan” as higher profile than “clan.”
Manmeat Jagmeet…he got Sikh-appeal.
(Somewhere Saint Tommy Douglas is exclaiming: “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”)
Apropos of nothing….
Simon Fraser University is currently consumed with whether to rename SFU sports teams from “SFU clans” to something else, “out of respect,” according to the initiator, philosophy professor Holly Andersen, for US university teams who might think SFU was supporting the Ku Klux Klan.
The team names date from SFU’s founding in 1965, with explicit connection to the Fraser clan. The use of “clan” honours that connection to the Scottish clan system. The word is centuries old, with OED citations back to the 15th century, and has many uses in literature. It is used by and about BC and other First Nations to describe in English their cultural organization. It of course makes distinctions, but these are in no way discriminatory. Any US student who thinks the word is suggestive of the KKK perhaps needs their eyes opened to the wider world.
Prof. Andersen’s premise appears to be that the core or primary meaning of “clan” is racist, as in KKK. Eliminating the use of “clan” would, ironically, accomplish exactly that effect, leaving “Klan” as higher profile than “clan.”
John Edmond
Shurely, Clann an Drumma, ye sassenach scunners;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEodyuU6KwM