There are times when you really just need to have a sense of humor. This is one of those times, y'all. When I played intramural sports in college, we tried to come up with names that bordered on bad taste, and we got away with as much as we could. I played on one basketball team called "Painful Rectal Itch" and another called "Foreskins (and a shirt)". My softball team was called "The Barking Spider", which in case anyone really needs to know, is a euphemism for passing gas. Tasteful? Hell, no. Politically incorrect? Perhaps. Fun? Udamnbetcha. That was the whole point.
The latest eruption of political correctness run amok involves, of all things, Muslim football teams.
You heard right. A group of young Muslim men in Southern California organized what were basically a series of pickup football games for the New Year's holiday. The trouble began after the young men chose names for the teams. Some of the suggestions ("Muslim Football All-Stars," "4th and Goal") were harmless enough. But others were, to critics, clearly out of bounds.
There was Intifada, the term Palestinians use to describe revolts against Israeli occupation. And Soldiers of Allah. And Mujaheddin, a term that means "holy warrior" and has been used in reference to Islamic terrorist groups. Totally unacceptable, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Southern California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. Cooper told the Associated Press that such words are "linked to real terrorists, real threats, real murders." And using them only glorifies terrorism....
Judging from the comments of some of the players, most of whom are in their twenties, there doesn't seem to have been any malicious intent. It might be different if all the suggested team names were as politically charged as the three at issue.
All right, Rabbi; I will grant you that appearances being what the are, the names border on the tasteless, and perhaps (if you're Jewish) even offensive. Still, we are talking about football teams here, not a political movement. The names may be politically incorrect, but if that's as bad as it gets, is there really a problem here? I should think not.
Besides, is Rabbi Cooper intending to become some sort of self-appointed arbiter of nomenclature acceptability? Is it his intent that young Muslims males come to him for approval before naming their football teams? Methinks the good Rabbi would be well-advised to get over himself. (Allow me to digress for a moment, if you would.... If this were a Jewish league, and one of the teams was named Irgun, would the British government then have the right to protest a team being named after a Jewish terrorist organization from the British Mandate period?)
A little perspective might be a good thing here. No one is strapping dynamite to their bodies. The only bombs in play will be the long ones thrown by quarterbacks. It's football. It's a bunch of young Muslims having fun. What, really, is so bad about that?
