But I digress, an African-American can use the word, can rap using the word and many people may enjoy the music and purchase it. It doesn’t give them free license to use the word themselves, especially when NOT an African American.

Caucasian marketers from a lacrosse equipment manufacturing company, that makes equipment for a predominantly caucasian sport, should use caution in using any marketing materials that may insult under represented minorities, especially in the United States where said under-represented minorities still see/hear/receive quite a bit of racist speech and acts. (Check out Twitter after the US elections).

In the end, if a group says they are offended, who are we to tell them that their feelings are wrong. I agree that Warrior obviously had no intent to offend as that would be stupid. But offend they did and they fixed it by removing the offending adverts and social media posts.

*I guess we reached the limit in number of reply of conversation below, so I’ll start a new one here.

Ugh, then why call yourself “Philippines lacrosse”? and by the way it’s about how many people you can get to play lacrosse not just kids. If you know anything about international lacrosse, it’s that in many countries lacrosse grew from TOP-DOWN with Adult first. If your rational that lacrosse expansion is not about the men’s national team competing, then why is it working for the rest of Asia? Ah, yes they have the men’s team to encourage the local to get involved as marketing/motivation tool for the locals. And why would your team decide to spend a lot of money on the matching “team gears” first, when that money would be better use on developing lacrosse?

And let me get this straight, the country of Philippines doesn’t have young children to conduct lacrosse clinic? that’s why you have to go to Costa Rica? On wait, THEY DO or else you wouldn’t have put out the press release about “having a lacrosse clinic for children in the Philippines” unless, that wasn’t really a real plan? 
#hypocrite

When that happens, people get emotional, and start to see things that might not be there. I don’t think Payu ever said the Dojo was RACIST… he just pointed out how it COULD be deemed offensive. There is a big difference there.

You guys clearly have different approaches to the game, cultural identity, politics, etc… but I just think if this were not a lacrosse conversation, it could be a lot nastier.

This conversation, however, has been smart and passionate, and I thank you both for sharing your views.

Our decision to go to Costa Rica was based on the fact that we could go there to help with youth clinics and development first, and I was very insistent on that with Ron and Justin.  We can go any where to play lacrosse, but its the helping those who need that mean more to us.  For us to fly to Asia to play lacrosse, just to say we went to Asia to play lacrosse would do absolutely nothing to help our cause or yours.  Our focus is not just to grow The Philippines Lacrosse program, but to help introduce lacrosse to anyone and everyone that wants to learn.  Asia lacrosse expansion is not based on how many Mens National Teams compete in a tournament, it should be based on how many kids start playing.  Youth lacrosse growth has always been my stance.  The whole conversation started on the Ninja Please campaign being a phrase that could be seen as offensive to the African American culture, yet some how you figured out a way to make it offensive to Asians as well and that is what I thought was ridiculous, but nonetheless you are entitled to your opinion on what play on words offends you.  But there is no play on words when you outright said “real” Asians.  Which was not directed at me, right?  I’ll give you that, I probably took that personal since the last reference you made to real Asians was the day after you and I decided to part ways, or you cut ties, or we left you, or however you want to look at it.  Bottom line the conversation went way beyond what it was initially intended for, but aren’t you glad that everyone can now look at both sides of the story and decide for themselves.  If they call me an a-hole for playing devils advocate so be it, but at the end of the day we both know that my deep seeded hatred for the Dallas Cowboys is enough fuel to help me grow the game, while we all must come together to support our re-elected President, and ask why the Lakers could not get Phil Jackson.  (I threw that last part in to see if anyone was paying attention)

#Love_conquers_all

You finally saying what really get you to. If you really want to go down that route, sounds like the chip on your shoulder really took over this whole conversation about something else.

1) Yes, I had issue with Philippines lacrosse’s policy which contradicts what was promised when I was ask to help advocate, negotiate for and supports the program. So I resigned, and withdraw my support. I have worked with/built Singapore lacrosse who are filled majority of expats. They’re on the ground there, and use their personal contact in the U.S. to send or even fly in in the quest of lacrosse development… it’s not “easy” but it’s not hard either. You just willing to put in the work. I’ve worked with people from Malaysia, Uganda and now Jamaica who take it serious in doing whatever it takes to get lacrosse going there. It’s the “behind the scene” stuff that people doesn’t want to do, and we don’t mind doing it. 

2) The Fake program I referred to is the program that do not yield or make real attempt in development “on the ground” in those respective country as FIL intended. Yes, not all team has funding we do.. but shouldn’t the first glimpse of money that gathered in fund raising for Philippines lacrosse go toward a trip to the Philippines? Not a trip to Costa Rica. If you say it’s not enough, then why not saved up a little more until you CAN go to the Philippines. It takes the team effort, if you say the reason you won’t go because of money, or “the guys doesn’t want to go” then they shouldn’t be representing the Philippines. I did reached out to help, even to the local Fillipino gov. to get people on the ground there to connect, and offer financial assistant.. 

Also the supports from my self, and the companies I brought along to get you to at least compete in the tournament that located IN ASIA Which all you have to do just pay for the airfare, we take care of the rest: waived tournament fee, hotel, local transport, free uniforms etc. just ask HKLA, and SLA.. (but you know this). To help with the expansion of the sport in Asia by bringing more teams in..

That being said, what I was referring to is that in recent months there are those who in the U.S. reached out and trying to “con” myself or my organization, and even FIL for that matter for the support in some of these Asian countries (Cambodia, Burma, and Vietnam).. Which didn’t take too much of the research to find out. If your program is not like these mentioned above, then you shouldn’t worried about it… as it is more and “after thought” for me for these petty conflict. 

But whatever you do, stop offending Asia with “Dear Asia: We’re coming to save you, sincerely Philipines Lacrosse” crap, we don’t care for it… but it just embarrassing. Don’t open your mouth and saying you gonna save them when you can’t even make it out there… Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea they are a few lacrosse development light years away from PLA. The reason I mentioned them instead of TLA or SLA because they don’t have the same budget or the U.S. supports like we do.. so don’t use the “money defense”. 

3. Fake Asian in this conversation has no relation to “Fake national program” in the context in which we spoke of previously. Again, it’s not about you… I don’t even know if you have flag on your footwear or not. It’s more about saying those who understood the culture, which if you did we won’t have this back-and-forth discussion about it… but as we know now, that wasn’t really your intention is it? I apologize on my earlier post because I thought you indeed misunderstood, but I clearly that’s not the case. 

I feel like this sort of thing just bringing down the conversation. And I’ll let me work in lacrosse development do the talking, so should you too instead of getting on the defensive of what you THINK other say about your program.

I’m done. Thanks LAS for this space, and I apologize for bringing this mess on to this blog post.

Will they be as willing to test limits or will there be a noticeable shift in tone?

#Cheers

The point was not that the DOJO shoes IS offensive, but that it could be. The NinjaPlease tag might not offend you, but it might offend others. Etc.

The “real vs fake” issue has clearly offended you a little. Yet you continue to ask WHY others are so offended by these other things… can you not see the hypocrisy there?

The point here is that a conversation is a good place to start increasing understanding, whether it is about hashtags, product names or real vs fake culture. I think we can all say we’re learning more about others, and that is a good thing.  THAT is why we can’t sweep this under the rug. the opportunity is simply too great.

Maybe my “emotion” on the #Ninja_Please campaign, and playing of devils advocate on this, comes from the fact that @twitter-131036889:disqus still hasn’t been able to define to me the difference between “Real/Fake” Asians which I found to be somewhat offensive since I “live in America my whole life”.  And I might have just lit the fuse of a firecracker that I could regret, but while we are talking about cultural equality, why not discuss what the difference is since he refers to “real” asians quite a bit.

Just because one group decided to go one way on an issue does not mean another group has to do the same thing. Rap did not set a precedent for all N-word conversations moving forward. ALSO, some people did have a problem with the language. It’s been an ongoing debate for years actually.

What you are effectively saying is that because someone else is doing it, we should be able to do it too? I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I live my life.

I understand you personally don’t have an issue with any of this stuff, which is fine. And I’m glad you are willing to have a conversation about it. But I do find it troubling that you are so quick to downplay someone else’s concerns, just because YOU don’t see it that way.

And one more thing… this is NOT a witch hunt. Warrior has NOT been marginalized or attacked here. In fact, it’s been a pretty amazing and enlightening conversation so far. Why would we want to sweep that under the rug?

And if you think racism doesn’t exist in America, or that we don’t need to talk about this stuff, look at the Tweets Jovan Miller has received because of this, and prepare to be SHOCKED and OFFENDED. Those tweets are as good a reason as any to have this conversation (NOT witch hunt.).

“50 Cent’s debut album, Get Rich or Die Trying (2003), shows how popular the word “nigga” is in the lyrics of rap songs. His album sold 872,000 albums during the first week of release in February 2003 breaking the old record of 803,000 set by Snoop Dogg’s 1993 album, Doggystyle (both albums were produced by Dr. Dre). The new rap sensation from Queens, New York used the word “nigga” a total of 131 times in his debut album, and his hit single In Da Club, which had the word “nigga” in it nine times, was the number one single on Billboard chart during April 2003. Rappers almost always used the word “nigga” in a casual way.” (Alonso/Streetsgangs.com, 2003) (Streetgangs.com is as ghetto a reference as it can get)

The reference above was used to illustrate that over a decade ago, the term was being used lyrically, without adjustment (N-word to #Ninja), and millions of dollars were made, the music was bumped throughout clubs worldwide from the US, to Asia, to Europe, and even in South Africa, and  yet we still bought there next albums. 

Rap is a very culturally diverse market, with rappers and customers being of ALL colors, including Asians.  And the N-word has, is, and will continue to be used in POP Culture/ Rap music.  Kyle Harrison’s “Top 5″ songs all are by rappers that regularly use the term, and Kanye West even has a  new song titled “N**** in Paris”, yet no one chastised him. 

Now I know that I am not the leading source on all the equal rights, or “real/fake” Asian, or lacrosse, but if one industry makes millions is not billions on the direct use of the N-word, can another industry not at least get witch-hunted when using the phrase #Ninja_Please.