[ Post a Response | Valley of the Sun Ultimate Association ]
Posted by < Nate on 9/10/2008, 8:03 am, in reply to "Re: hcuk"
149.169.133.X
There are a couple of trains of thought going on in this discussion, so allow me to attempt to clarify:
1. is "hcuk" offensive?
2. VOTS's consistency in being inoffensive
3. the relative weight of offensiveness on t-shirts and team names on the VOTS website
4. the practical desire to not potentially offend relevant parties
4a. especially people who would have to wear the shirt
5. Keith's / The President's right/responsibility to make decisions in the best interest of the league.
6. How to go about effecting change if you don't agree with the results of 5.
1. This question has not been answered - people are behaving as though it were self-evident. "Huck" is phonetically and orthographically closer to "####," and yet we're putting that on the shirt without a second thought. Delimiting why exactly this is offensive would be a fundamental step to an open discussion.
2. VOTS has clearly been historically inconsistent on this issue. Part of this is due to the debate over 3, but part of this is also internal to the t-shirt medium - we've had "Come From Behind" and naked faux-Greek men on our shirts, and that's just in the past year. And incidentally, I don't like the sleight of hand "we didn't put 'S.H.I.T.' on the shirts in last league" argument, as you're comparing a directly offensive word to at most a metareference to a offensive word. Not the same thing.
3. Good points on both sides, though I disagree that it's just Ultimate players who go to the VOTS site. Let's not pretend that the website isn't a public document - anyone looking to grant or not grant us field space would be extraordinarily likely to give the site a looksee. Plus the whole "everyone in the world with the exception of China" can look at the site aspect. Again, it's a valid point that the t-shirt, being a physical, more permanent entity, could have more impact, but it's inaccurate to pretend the site has none.
4. The pragmatic argument that Katherine makes carries the most weight, imho. Meaning we shouldn't go around offending people willy nilly b/c of the tangible impact it could have. But we have to define what level of potential offensiveness we're comfortable censoring, and that's contigent on question 1.
4a. Granted. I haven't worn my naked Greek discus guy shirt for this exact reason - I don't want people thinking I support the ancient Greeks and therefore pederasty.
5. Granted, though the dogmatic way in which this verdict was rendered was a bit much. I would have appreciated an explanation, and I'm guessing the *designer of the shirt* would have appreciated one, too. That said, I fully recognize El Presidente's authority and the hard work he's put in. He/she has to do what he/she thinks is in the best interest of everyone, and those decisions aren't easy. That does not entail "Because I Say So" authority, however. So I humbly request a more open dialogue with El Jefe next time this sort of thing comes up.
(Part of the problem is that the captains voted on this with the impression that it was a sanctioned idea and *then* it was vetoed. A good fascist would have suppressed the rebellious ideas in the first place. I kid, I kid.)
6. Having requested a more open dialog, I have to completely agree with Jose - if you want to effect change, you have to run for office.
Talk is good. Let's keep it up, VOTSies.
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