The Super Bowl and YHWH
Last week I wrote about the significance and struggles of language in a “Christian” subculture. And there’s one story that my mind replayed over and over again: The Saints visit to the Super Bowl. Admittedly, I know less about football than I do about hair-brush making. In fact, my one and only football story involves Ryan Morris, Jon Reeves, a nerf football, and ultimately my broken pinky.
Still, I listen to NPR, so this story about copyright claims over “Who Dat?” and the New Orleans Saints fascinates me. Basically, “Who Dat” is a phrase which has been a round for 100 years and which has become synonymous with a Saints’ victory. After the Saints won their conference game and a trip to the Super Bowl, people in New Orleans began to use the phrase on t-shirts and other memorabilia.
Well, the NFL steps in and says they own the rights to this “Who dat” and issues cease and desist orders to the New Orleans business folks for selling unlicensed NFL goods. Of course, copyrights are tricky things, but after a series of negative reports in the Times-Picayune, the NFL backed off their claim.
Put simply, here’s a huge corporation claiming the rights to a local, colloquial phrase, a phrase with roots in Southern injustice and oppression. This is a prime example of the struggle to control language, especially in the context of big money.
It reminds me of the initial encounter Moses had with God, where Moses asked God for a name. God answered, “I am that I am.” Some folks read some metaphysical meaning in that, but I read it more concretely or postcolonlially. God didn’t say, “Well, Moses, my friends call me Frank but you can call me YHWH.” The name of God and the power to define that name eluded Moses. In essence, I hear God saying, “I’ll not be defined by you.”
In a small way, the struggle over the phrase, “Who dat,” is similar. So congrats to the folks of New Orleans who refused to give cede power and control over their language to the NFL.
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