America, We Have A Problem ........
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Not to long ago this headline appeared in my local news paper."Formerly Pork Chop, the mascot's new name is Ferrous":http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5porkchopbox.6167205dec04,0,6269719.storyThe Ironpigs are a local farm league based in the Lehigh valley. It seems every big decision the organization has to make becomes a contest. That's okay, it builds goodwill with the public, I am on board. We had a contest for the team name, one for the uniform colors, potty partitions, brand of frank to be served and yada yada yada .... you get the idea. So the latest contest involved picking a name for the team mascot. The mascot is a freaking pig. Remember this it will be important in just a minute. So anyway the contest was won by a cute 5 year old who thought the name "Porkchop" would be fun. "Porkchop" is a good name I thought, it's endearing, it's easy to remember, fits with the whole porcine theme going on around this baseball team and more importantly I saw a adaptation of the Braves "Hatchet Chop", you know the "Pork Chop" in the 7th inning stretch if we are in the lead, kinda like saying, "turn out the lights, game over".Well "Porkchop" was never meant to be, at least in the Lehigh Valley. Turns out, there was an outcry of discrimination over the intended name. You read correctly, D I S C R I M I N A T I O N ! But first a nickels worth of history. Lehigh Valley was home to the now defunct steel making giant Bethlehem Steel. "The Steel" was the employer of record for all of the years of it's operation. Located on the South side of Bethlehem, much of the plant was neighbours with Bethlehem's ethnic neighbourhoods. Most prevalent being Polish and Slavic and the other being Puerto Rican and Portuguese (yeah Portuguese, who knew). Well as you can imagine back in the day before there was a term for political correctness, each ethnic group and economic strata had its hateful/playful/vulgar names to describe one another, and one of those names was, yup you guessed it, porkchop.Porkchop was used to describe Puerto Ricans and Portuguese. As for its origins, I don't know, I first heard it used in this way myself when I read the news article 2 days ago. In fact the leader of the movement, one Guillermo Lopez (the fella who spearheaded the movement) admitted, he had heard the term alot in the 70's and by the time he left "The Steel" in '83 he rarely heard it. Now, thanks to Guillermo, the term "pork chop" is derogatory again.Why are people so freakin sensitive? Clearly 5 year old Kylie Shimkus (who won the contest) didn't have malice in her heart. She thought it was cute. In all seriousness, racism sucks. I'll be the first admit that. I have seen my share of racism in the service (most of it aimed at blacks) and felt very uncomfortable around bigots. If included in a conversation that started with racial epithets, most of the time I would smile and try to change the subject or just leave, and sometimes I would speak up. Racism serves no good purpose and when used to degrade others , ... well to me it just shows what kind of moron that person really is. I would also like to say, if the intent and meaning of the words are innocent enough, don't pitch a fit. You wind up making an issue when there wasn't one there in the first place.
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Night Cody. Happy Hanukkah to you. One day I will tell about my favorite Bible story.
If it is, your in some,
Don't,
As far as I am concerned,
I'm just here cause,
But before I go I just want to shout out a,