Bah, Humbug!
Oh, that’s right, because the President used “Geronimo” as a code name for Osama Bin Diesel. At first I didn’t understand the outrage, because I thought that Geronimo was the name of the mission, like Operation Dumbo Drop. The SEALS helicoptered in, yelling Geronimo! as they rappelled to the ground, like you would when jumping into a lake or into bed with an ugly woman. But no, turns out it was a direct reference, and people are pissed.
“Think of the outcry if they had used any other ethnic group’s hero,” the Onondaga Council of Chiefs said in a release Tuesday, “like Mandingo or Blacula or Shaft (in Africa.)”
Hm… Geronimo is considered a “hero” because he resisted the white man. Sounds like an appropriate appropriation to me.
“Geronimo is arguably the most recognized Native American name in the world*, other than Chief Noc-a-Homa of the Atlanta Braves” the chiefs said, “and this comparison only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about our people.”
Well make up your mind, is he a hero or a stereotype? Are you offended because using his moniker as a code for the most hated man in the world is disrespectful to him, or because it makes all Native people look like white-hating savages? (Which, again, I can see the correlation.)
* Pocahontas doesn’t count, because she was a woman.
