4.2
ACTIVITY DRAWING ON A SOURCE
Following are two passages, each one preceded by a question. Develop a response to one of those questions — even if it’s a simple yes or no. Then, read the source that follows and select two quotes that support, challenge, or expand on your response. Finally, write a paragraph response that draws on those quotes, using the three steps to integrating a quotation described above. Pay special attention to how the source might challenge your initial response.
Should the Washington Redskins football team change its name?
Redskins and Reason / Charles Krauthammer
This article appeared in the Washington Post in 2013.
I wouldn’t want to use a word that defines a people — living or dead, offended or not — in a most demeaning way. It’s a question not of who or how many had their feelings hurt, but of whether you want to associate yourself with a word that, for whatever historical reason having nothing to do with you, carries inherently derogatory connotations.
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Years ago, the word “retarded” emerged as the enlightened substitute for such cruel terms as “feeble-
minded” or “mongoloid.” Today, however, it is considered a form of denigration, having been replaced by the clumsy but now conventional “developmentally disabled.” There is no particular logic to this evolution. But it’s a social fact. Unless you’re looking to give gratuitous offense, you don’t call someone “retarded.” Let’s recognize that there are many people of good will for whom “Washington Redskins” contains sentimental and historical attachment — and not an ounce of intended animus. So let’s turn down the temperature. What’s at issue is not high principle but adaptation to a change in linguistic nuance. A close call, though I personally would err on the side of not using the word if others are available.
