A little more sensitivity when you’re assassinating, okay?
“Leaders of the Onondaga Nation blasted as “reprehensible” the code name used for Osama bin Laden in the commando assault that killed him: “Geronimo.” “We’ve ID’d Geronimo,” U.S. forces reported by radio Sunday to the White House. Later, word came that “Geronimo” was dead. “Think of the outcry if they had used any other ethnic group’s hero,” the Onondaga Council of Chiefs said in a release Tuesday. “Geronimo bravely and heroically defended his homeland and his people, eventually surrendering and living out the rest of his days peacefully, if in captivity.” “Geronimo is arguably the most recognized Native American name in the world,” the chiefs said, “and this comparison only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about our people.” “It’s typical,” said Onondaga Tadodaho Sid Hill, the nation's spiritual leader. He said Geronimo was a hero to American Indians and it was incomprehensible that “they use him to identify a man like Osama Bin Laden. All they know is just cowboys and Indians, the stuff they saw on TV.” (Click here for more)
First, I completely agree with the Native Americans outrage about the use of Geronimo as a code name for Bin Laden.
ReplyDeleteNow as devil's advocate. I suspect the name was chosen because Geronimo was long sought and evaded capture for years. He was the ultimate Guerrilla warrior of his day. I will leave any comparison at that.
IMHO much of the military is not truly political or ethnic. They focus on military characteristics. I am not excusing the use of Geronimo's name. I am only offering a suggestion as to why it was chosen.
Perhaps " Silverstein" would have been a more appropriate code name?
ReplyDeleteShel? Will Bin Laden get his "pitcher" on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
ReplyDeleteIndians ("Native Americans"?! Fuck that!) are such pussies these days. The beauty is they don't have to even try to find something that offends their delicate ethnic sensabilities; guilty white people are forever bringing things to their attention by whining, "...golly, aren't you Native Americans offended by THAT?!"
ReplyDeleteBy the way, guilty white folks, before you get all puffed up with righteous indignation, I'm a card-carrying Indian; family name on the rolls, relatives on the rez, and sick to death about hearing the bullshit romanticization of an ethnic group who, for the most part, stopped giving a shit about this sort of thing ages ago.
Nice one Mr. Sanchez!!
ReplyDelete