Not long ago, students at Dartmouth College canceled a Hawaiian luau because some Hawaiian students complained that it was an act of "bigotry." Earlier, for the same reason, students had canceled a party where fraternity members had planned on dressing up like inner city blacks. There is also a nationwide movement to replace American Indian names and terms as the names of professional sports teams with something more culturally sensitive.

I agree that being culturally sensitive is important. My complaint is that those complaining aren't going far enough. Where, for example, are the suggestions to change the name of the Boston Celtics to something more appropriate?

The Celtics is a basketball team with mostly black players. Not a Celt in sight. And what about Boston being in the team's name? Few if any of the black players are even from Boston. The name is triply offensive: It's offensive to real Celts (Irish, Scots, etc.). It's offensive to blacks (by omission). And, it's offensive to Boston (because there are few if any Bostonians on the team). Also what about those high ticket prices to pay the astronomical salaries of non-Celt, non-Bostonians, so that middle class Celtic Bostonians can go watch them play? Who the hell can identify with such teams?


I suggest that the Boston Celtics be renamed the Inner City Zulus. This would remove the phony city designation; remove the offensive name Celts and give credit to the black basketball players and their heritage.

And what about the Minnesota Vikings? How about renaming that football team the Ghetto Tutsis. Same reasoning as given above for the Celtics.

I mean, the present sports team structure in this nation is a stupid identity denying scam. Middle class white people from, say, Boston, are supposed to identify with a basketball team of millionaire blacks who don't even come from Boston? Absurd. And, what about blacks from Boston? They're supposed to get excited about a black team with a white name? The whole thing is meaningless.

Most people can't really identify with any of these teams at all, if they give it a few moments thought. In fact, I suspect that most people would prefer to attend sandlot games of various sports if the players were actually from the cities that they play for and if they only received working class salaries, and if they actually look like the people in their communities.

Let's, for example, have the Boston Beaners...er...well, maybe not Beaners. Hold on, ah, let's, for example, have a team called the Boston Cods and let's have every city have myriad teams of adult semi-professional players playing other such teams in all sports. And let's be sensitive to all ethnic groups by using names of animals...ah, but not cats because then the cat ladies will be upset and maybe not dogs or horses either. Scratch that. Let's use the names of insects. The Atlanta Worms may play the Birmingham Ants, or the Washington D.C. Dung Beetles. And certainly Dung Beetles is an appropriate name for Washington, D.C.

Go Dung Beetles, go Dung Beetles, shish, boom, ba!

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