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No, the US isn't the center of the world. However, if I found out that a name I liked was associated heavily with racism, chattel slavery, lynching, and the continued persecution of a minority population originally kidnapped and brought there in chains, I sure as hell wouldn't want to use it. I recognize that a lot of people feel a lot of disdain for the US and its citizens' ethnocentrism, and I think it's justified. A lot of us don't like the country any more than you do. But it's not really about that, anymore than refusing to use a name associated with the British empire's centuries of tyranny would be a tacit acceptance or bolstering of current sentiments of British exceptionalismism / England as the master culture. It's about solidarity with an oppressed group.

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I get that lots of people don't know about the association between the name and the racist caricature / slur, but it seems willfully, almost obstinately callous to ignore the implications of you are aware of them.

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This message was edited 9/27/2020, 11:30 AM