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 GERONIMO!
The
NCAA Goes off the Reservation over Team Mascots...
[by Mac Johnson] 8/9/05
Last week
the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA as it
is better known, issued
a ruling essentially banning schools with Indian-themed mascots from
post-season play. Team names or nicknames deemed “"hostile
or abusive"” to Native Americans were also banned
from appearing on any uniform or associated clothing during
the post-season, beginning Feb. 1. Teams will still be
allowed to take the field, however, provided they remove their
team names, leave the mascot in the bus and agree to display
a very guilty look on their face for the entire game.
Presumably,
teams with redacted names on their jerseys will be allowed
to play on a “"shirts vs. redskins"” system. Oh
wait, now I'll never be allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl. Dang. Next
week, I fully expect the NCAA to appoint Ward Churchill as
its President and officially change its name to the PC-NCAA.
Contributor
Mac
Johnson
Mac
Johnson is a freelance writer and biologist in Cambridge,
Mass. Mr. Johnson holds a Doctorate in Molecular and
Cellular Biology from Baylor College of Medicine. He
is a frequent opinion contributor to Human
Events Online. His website can be found at macjohnson.com [go
to Johnson index] |
Last week the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA
as it is better known, issued
a ruling essentially banning schools with Indian-themed mascots from
post-season play. Team names or nicknames deemed “"hostile
or abusive"” to Native Americans were also banned
from appearing on any uniform or associated clothing during the
post-season,
beginning Feb. 1. Teams will still be allowed to take the
field, however, provided they remove their team names, leave
the mascot in the bus and agree to display a very guilty look
on their face for the entire game.
Presumably,
teams with redacted names on their jerseys will be allowed
to play on a “"shirts vs. redskins"” system. Oh
wait, now I'll never be allowed to play in the Sugar
Bowl. Dang. Next week, I fully expect the NCAA
to appoint Ward Churchill as its President and officially change
its name to the PC-NCAA.
Because the whole
pronouncement was apparently not absurd enough on its own,
NCAA Committee Chairman Walter Harrison added that it
wasn't really a ban on mascots, since it only
applied to post-season play and that during the regular season, "what
each institution decides to do is really its own business.”
Yeah. So
Florida State can be the “"Seminoles" during
the regular season and then “"The team formerly
known as the ‘'Seminoles'" for
any bowl games or tournaments. That should work out well.
If using
Indians as team symbols really were originally intended as
an effort to degrade or belittle Indians, or had that actual
effect, I might not think the whole thing were as ludicrous
and half-witted as I do. But the fact is that the use
of Indians as symbols is a compliment. The only people
offended by it are the racial grievance industry and a bunch
of white, middle-class pantywaists, both of which would have
found something else to whine about had they not invented this
imbecilic non-issue.
People do
not name their team “"The Losers"”, “"The
Drooling Slack-jaws"” or “"The Heartworms ." People
name their teams after things they admire or wish
to be like. Mascots connote power, speed, fierceness,
tenacity or nobility. That is why many teams end up with
names like ‘'Gators, Tigers, Wolverines, Bulldogs and
Eagles. Are we to believe that Georgia Tech is seeking
to embarrass or marginalize Yellow Jackets? (Granted,
Techies are Evil, but they are probably not malicious
toward Hymenopteran-Americans.)
No one in
his right mind (which excludes the PC crowd right off, doesn't
it?), would imagine that a group would seek to belittle something
by admiring it, yet that is exactly what is being alleged by
the proponents of the idea that Indian mascots are hurtful. Are
Indians unique as human-themed mascots? Not in the least. If
you believe that Illinois being the “"Illini" is
a grievous wrong and dehumanizing, then you have to also believe
that the people of Boston hate the Irish --so much they named
their basketball team after them. Does Ole Miss disrespect
Rebels? Do Minnesotans degrade the Vikings? And what
are we to make of the Spartans, the Trojans, the Yankees, the
Steelers, the Oilers, the Orangemen, the Cavaliers, the Kings,
the Cowboys, the Packers, the Bills, the Raiders, the Patriots
and dozens of other teams? Have we all been wounded by
such homages?
The Indian
peoples were chosen for mascots in so many places in America
because they are admired. They have been romanticized
in the foundation mythology of the nation as noble and special. They
have been internalized by the culture that fought them as part
of our shared national identity. They represent independence,
freedom, fierceness, courage, endurance and uniqueness of place.
And if you have to be defined, that's not a bad set of
words to be defined by. It is hardly hostile or abusive.
Teams wish
to perform in the arena as fiercely as Knights, Spartans, Pirates,
or Braves. Or at least they did. For now the grievance
industry is redefining Indians out of that pantheon. Strong,
brave, principled, independent and fearless can now be replaced
with easily-wounded, oversensitive, whiny, victim-movement
copycats. Native Americans thus pass from the mythology
of America into the pathology of America –- along with
the rest of us. When such symbols are pulled down in
the name of helping the symbolized, what part of them will
be left in the popular culture? What reason will anyone
have to ponder them? How will one life be improved?
The whole
thing is intellectually rotten and morally pointless, which
puts it well in the mainstream of the current politics of hallowed
victimization.
By the way,
I wonder if it has ever occurred to the NCAA that they are
headquartered in Indian-apolis? Oh, the humanity. tOR
This piece first appeared at Human
Events Online
copyright
2005 Mac Johnson
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