CNN: What are Indians, Alex?

Words matter, but CNN is confused about words.

On yesterday’s Crossfire, S.E. Cupp and friends dissolved into confusion in the midst of a spirited — albeit devolved — repartee on the subject of racial words and what they mean.

Because S.E. Cupp has never considered the power of a name relative to how a person is perceived. Not S.E. Cupp.

As Raw Story giggles:

CNN Crossfire host S.E. Cupp pushed back at criticism of the National Football League’s Washington franchise on Friday by insinuating it was a distraction from other issues facing Native American communities.

“Native Americans have real problems,” Cupp told Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC). “Poverty, domestic abuse, high suicide rates.”

Cupp did not mention some House Republicans’ refusal to agree to expand the Violence Against Women Act to include those communities, instead playing a clip of Walter “Red Hawk” Brown rebuking President Barack Obama for weighing in on the issue and saying he would support changing the team’s name from “Redskins.”

And then the erudite salon that is Crossfire went, well, a bit off the rails:

[Van] Jones then argued that it would be impossible to have a similar debate if a team named itself after slurs made against other communities, such as “the N-word.”

“You really think they’re the same?” Elder asked Jones, before criticizing Obama for inviting the Chicago Blackhawks to the White House after they won the Stanley Cup. Elder did not mention that the Blackhawks were named after Sauk Nation leader Chief Black Hawk, a fact the team acknowledges on its website, while also working in conjunction with Chicago’s American Indian Center.

“We’re not talking about Blackhawks,” Norton shot back, pointing her finger at Elder. “Redskins is what we’re talking about.”

Correct. ‘Redskins’ is what we’re talking about. It’s an absurd, antiquated term, and so blatantly offensive that CNN can’t possibly understand why anyone would take umbrage.

S.E. Cupp. ClottedCremeSkin. VengefulRougeSkin. Words have no meaning, do they.

By: rhb

Rob is a NYC-based Internet entrepreneur. He's also a businessman and job creator (wait: doesn't demand create jobs?) who understands the sense, and the eventual predominance, of the progressive agenda.