Citizens of Blergland, inhabitants of that great lakeside city founded by our forebear Moses Blearg, let me assure you once and for all: the spaceball team that we, your alien colonizers, have named after you is a tribute to your people and is not at all racist.
Now I understand there is some confusion about this matter, which can be traced all the way back to the year 2492, when we aliens discovered your planet. We actually were trying to get to Uranus, and for a while had mistaken your humble planet for our intended destination. Hence, we started calling you bipeds “Uranuses,” something a large percentage of you apparently weren’t too keen on, though I assure you, no reference to any part of your anatomy, especially one so grotesque, was ever intended. Obviously, as evolved beings who recycle all nutrients and create no biological waste, we would have no concept of this shameful body part that sounds so similar to the name we applied to you.
While this is an unfortunate coincidence and causes some of you great offense, what do you really expect us to do about it now… change the language we use to refer to you to something you yourselves have identified as appropriate?! I mean, really, let’s be straight-faced.
So you see, right away we started off on the wrong appendage, but it wasn’t really our fault. How were we supposed to know you’d have no immunity to the diseases of planet Zorg? I mean, yes, there was that one time one of our generals gave you Uranuses a blanket infected with zorgpox in the hopes that it would spread through your population like wildfire, but that was a very rare occurrence, and really, the infection didn’t need our assistance in eradicating 90% of your population; it pretty much did that on its own.
I know some of you are still upset about the many land treaties your ancestors signed, feeling we didn’t uphold our end of the contract. All I can really say about that is, it happened hundreds of years ago, by aliens who were long dead by the time we named our spaceball team after you, and you really should just get over it. Yes, North and South America were beloved homelands to many of your ancestors for thousands of years before we took them from you.
But you have to remember, you are descended from that lucky 10% who survived long enough to move to the reservation we created for your people in Siberia. And how have you acclimated over the last couple hundred years? Today, Uranuses suffer rates of diabetes, alcoholism, and suicide that are markedly higher than the rates at which we Zorgians who share this planet with you experience. What next, you’re going to try to argue we bear some amount of responsibility for that too?
Now, I’ll admit, using a crude drawing of a Neanderthal covered in body hair and dragging his knuckles was not the most flattering mascot we could have chosen for the Uranuses. But you have to remember, that image was drawn at a different time. You can’t just look back at Zorgians from the 2950s and expect them to have the same sensibilities we do in 3020.
And, after decades of opposition and protest, we listened to you on that point, didn’t we? We stopped putting that logo on our uniforms two whole years ago. We can’t exactly police fans who still wear Neanderthal t-shirts, post Neanderthal signs in their front yards, or paint their green faces in various human flesh-tones and swing their arms like they’re clubbing a mammoth while cheering the Uranuses on to victory. We believe in free speech around here, and we know this is all done in your honor, and is not in the least bit racist toward Uranuses.
Seriously, don’t be such an atmospheric ice crystal.