To read this post please scroll down.

 

Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Today’s blacklisted Americans: NY bans whites from honoring American Indians in school nicknames

American Indian banned by New York
The American Indian, banned by New York

They’re coming for you next: The education department of New York state has now ruled that all schools outside of Indian reservations must change the names of their schools and teams if they make any reference to American Indian culture or history.

In a November 2022 memo sent by the state, all school districts were ordered to stop using Native American-themed mascots, nicknames and logos by the end of the 2022-2023 school year or risk being in violation of the Dignity Act. Districts risk the removal of school officers and the withholding of state aid if the order is not followed.

That order required schools such as Oneida (Indians), Oriskany (Redskins), Richfield Springs (Indians), Sauquoit Valley (Indians), Waterville (Indians) and West Canada Valley (Indians) with nicknames directly linked to Native Americans to change.

The ban also applies to schools like Liverpool (Warriors), Westhill (Warriors), Weedsport (Warriors), Canastota (Raiders), Clinton (Warriors), Fulton (Red Raiders), Hannibal (Warriors), Indian River (Warriors), Lowville (Red Raiders), Morrisville-Eaton (Warriors), Utica Proctor (Raiders) and Whitesboro (Warriors), with less obvious Native American connotations.

The brainless absurdity of this can hardly be measured. In every single case, these sports nicknames were chosen to honor the indomitable courage and fighting ability of American Indians. Schools wanted their sports teams to exhibit similar traits when playing their opponents. None of the names were meant to denigrate anyone.

Moreover, a number of these nicknames have nothing to do with the American Indian. As the article at the link notes, the Liverpool Warriors’ name refers to the Roman Armies, a fact that was stated explicitly when the school rebranded its mascots in 2003.

In fact, this stupid ruling means words like “warriors” and “raiders” are now forbidden from use, no matter the context, because someone might be offended sometime in some random way.

Worse, by forcing these name changes New York’s education department is wiping from history any memory of those Indians. It is now forbidden for non-Indians in New York’s government to honor any American Indian tribe in any way. These first immigrants to North America are now non-persons, their history, culture, and best qualities erased forever by an insane government so obsessed with race, “safe space,” “triggering,” and micro-aggression that its mind is closed to learning anything at all.

This banning however is hardly the end of this story. If you can ban these words out of fear of offending someone, you must proceed to ban a lot more, since the free exercise of speech is always going to offend someone. As admitted by Liverpool’s superintendent Daniel Henner, “We would never want to do anything that would offend anyone.”

I guess that means you need shut down the school entirely, because under such a premise it is impossible to teach anything.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

7 comments

  • Jhon B

    I get a lot of references to groups are now considered derogatory, but I just don’t get why you can’t use any reference to an indian when it is not. This is the kind of stuff that causes more hate than and creates new problems rather than solve existing ones.

  • Jhon B: I am an native American, born in Brooklyn. I will not use the language of the left to disinherit myself from my own homeland.

    “American Indian” is clear and precise. They are also as native to North America as I am, their ancestors having immigrated here from Asia.

  • Robert Pratt

    I like the British term too: Red Indian. Makes sense given their default association being India. My wife is from Mexico and we’ve spent a good deal of time there. It’s always been fun to ask people about phrases that activists here say are derogatory toward Mexicans. Mostly we’d find actual Mexicans unconcerned with such. They were most offended by U.S. people calling themselves Mexican. It’s not a race but a nationality!

  • James Street

    There’s a guy I see once or twice a year at parties who is part Indian, I mean Native American, and very proud of it. One time I asked him a question about how Indians lived 200 years ago and he turned red and said with a tense angry voice “there are many First Nations Peoples who would be offended if you used the term ‘Indian'”.

    Now it says “THE PUYALLUP TRIBE OF INDIANS” in big letters on the side of his tribe’s brand new casino in Tacoma:
    https://emeraldqueen.com/mt-content/uploads/2021/03/900-neon-untitled-1.jpg

  • GaryMike

    RZ:

    I, too, am a Native American. I, too, choose not to burden my brain with the left’s attempts to burden the rest of us with their urges for power over everyone.

    They won’t have me, and they won’t have my guns. The 2nd Amendment protects us from their ilk.

    It’s kinda a Little Big Horn notion of power v. power.

  • Alton

    The Great General Custer though it was too much trouble to tow his two Gatling Guns and a load of ammo along with His Mounted Troopers, left them to his backup formation which never reached him in Time, after he sent them on a wild goose chase . . .

    interesting ?, the ATF says that a working Gatling is Not a Machinegun, (but a piece of plastic is) and requires no extra Tax Stamp to own.
    New manufactured ones in .22 caliber are a Whale of FUN ?.

    Note: My COLLEGE is called the Tribe, and was the first to admit Indians back in The 1690s….in the 1990s we fought and Defeated the NCAA when they wanted to strip the College of the name usage or ban the University from All Sports.

    Yours Truly….
    1/125th Cherokee
    1/125th Chickahominy

  • bill53

    I am from Massapequa (tribe name), NY (Long Island), and lived near Tackapausha Preserve (chief’s name). Massapequa High School’s nickname is the Chiefs.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *