The Slants.

I just read where the Supreme Court has decided to hear the case of The Slants, an American Asian musical group.

Apparently Trademark registration people refused to give these guys a trademerk on their name because they deem it offensive.

Yeah? So?

It really isn't the job of the trademark registration people to judge what is offensive and what is not. It is simply their job to register trademarks, period. It's up to We, the People on an individual basis to decide if something offends us, as individuals.

Personally I have better things to do than worry about what four Americans of Asian descent want to neme their musical group. I suppose I could care less but I'd have to really work on it.

For the past few years there has been a stir over the names of several sports teams. The Cleveland Indians come to mind as I write this.

I went on record a while back with the opinion that this stupid contraversy could be stopped by renaming all of the other teams to racial and ethnic slurs. Sports recap on the 11 O'clock news could sound like a night at the race riots.

Frankly I am sick and tired of government taking away our rights. In the case of The Slants, they have a right to offend me. On the other hand if I am so offended I simply don't have to listen to their music. 

If enough peope decide not to listen to their music than I suppose the Slants will change their name.

On the other hand, I suppose they are aiming at the Asian community and it is likely the Asian community has a perverse sense of humor and enjoys the group along with their self effacing name. Those guys are entertainers and seem to know their audience.

Hell, they named their fourth album 'the Yellow Album' which says something. Frankly I think I'll have to check it out and listen to it sometime. Why not?

As a society we have started looking at government to try and protect us from every little slight. It wasn't long ago Americans were pretty thick skinned and sluffed a lot of the basic bullshit off. We knew that by doing so we were ultimately protecting their rights.

Truth is, most of us probably really don't care what an Asian-American music group wants to name themselves. It's not like the government assigned them a name. They chose it themselves, probably as a tongue in cheek way of advertising themselves to the Asian community. I'll bet the Asian community probably takes pride in the group.

I suppose this is similar to a Mexican-American group naming themselves 'the Wetbacks'. 

Personally I am not a real fan of racial slurs but I can be had. My favorite movie is 'Blazing Saddles', the uncut version with all of the slurs. Mel Brooks did a wonderful job of making us ALL look pretty sad.

I recently told a Social Justice Warrior the same thing I am going to tell anyone that is up in arms over the Slants choice of name.

Cry me a river. Build a suspension bridge across it and GET OVER IT. 


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY