Debbie Schlussel: Houston Soccer Bows to Absurd Political Correctness
Usually, it's American Indians allegedly offended by the names of baseball and football teams in college and the pros.
And we thought you couldn't get more politically correct in sports than soccer. After all, the boring sport is popular in all the countries that hate us. And not popular in the greatest country on earth (America, to our "fans" from the Al-Jazeera audience).
But we were wrong.
In fact, you can't be proud of your state or country anymore, if you are American. Take Major League Socccer's "Houston 1836." That WAS the name of the team . . . until Hispanics got offended.
You see 1836 was the year Houston was founded. Critics felt this name was "anti-Mexican" because it's also the year Texas gained its independence by defeating Mexico. So, now, independence is a crime.
Because of this "outrageous" display of pride in 2006 by bigoted Texas soccer fans actually proud of being a part of the United States, the name was changed, Monday, to the less offensive "Houston Dynamos. In a statement, the spineless, shameless team owners said, "at no time did MLS or AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group) ever want to offend any members of the community in Houston."
ESPN's "Soccer Times" reports:
Latinos, however, associate 1836 with the Texas Revolution and that year's bloody Battle of San Jacinto (about 20 miles east of Houston) when General Sam Houston led his Texas Army to defeat General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's Mexican forces. The Texas Republic then seceded from Mexico, to be annexed by the United States in 1845, just before the Mexican-American War of 1846-48.
If this is such a bad memory to Hispanics in Texas who are: a) supposed to be Americans, and b) couldn't possibly have been alive then, so can hardly have "bad memories" about it; then, perhaps they should just get rid of the name Houston. After all, that evil Gen. Houston brings bad memories.
Someone ought to go send the PC police to Philadelphia, where the name of it's NBA franchise might offend some Englishman. After all, how dare we celebrate the year 1776? Oops, we almost forgot those pesky "San Francisco '49ers". That might offend someone, too.
We hope no-one thinks of naming anything "1945." We hear there are a few aging Nazis left who might cry over their weinerschnitzel at the thought. No 1948, either. After all, that's the year the "evil Zionist entity" a/k/a Israel became a country. But "2001," go ahead and name your team after that. No problems there.
If Texans were this sensitive then, we'd probably all be the United Mexican States, and Julie Myers wouldn't need to change her lapel pin. Houston, you--not we--have a problem.
Posted by Debbie on March 7, 2006 01:36 PM to Debbie Schlussel