August 10, 2005

Fighting Irish? Yes. Fighting Illini?...No.

Many of you have probably now read about the NCAA's decision to ban offensive mascots/nicknames of schools at all NCAA championship events.

So you can have a crazy indian mascot during the regular season, but not at an NCAA sponsored championship? Whatever. I guess this is the NCAA's attempt to pressure all these schools with offensive references to remove them permenantely.

Anyway, I have a solution. Instead of using names associated with darker skined groups that have been victimized, these colleges should institute names associated with light skined groups that have been victimized. The logic is that white people are fair game for such things. For example: the NCAA's Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the NBA's Boston Celtics, the NFL's Minnesota Vikings (yes, vikings were victimized...by other vikings). The NCAA is targeting 18 schools. Here are my picks for the names these schools should use:

  • Alcorn State University Guals
  • Central Michigan University Saxsons
  • Catawba College Caereni
  • Florida State University Franks
  • Midwestern State University Mionians
  • University of Utah Allemanni
  • Indiana University-Pennsylvania Picts
  • Carthage College Slavs
  • Bradley University Balts
  • Arkansas State University Anglos
  • Chowan College Scythians
  • University of Illinois-Champaign Hittites
  • University of Louisiana-Monroe Amorites
  • McMurry University Mitanni
  • Mississippi College Kassites
  • Newberry College Dorians
  • University of North Dakota Acheans
  • Southeastern Oklahoma State University Sarmatians
Some of these groups did victimize other groups for sure. But they were in turn vicitimized eventually. So I think the Native American tribes swap for the European tribes is a good trade. The only difference is the pigmentation of the victims, that makes it alright.

4 comments:

Chris said...

Sorry, Ty, I gotta call bullshit on this one. I think that the issue of racial sensitivity being raise more has to do with the fact that the moniker is offensive in a local way. There's an issue of geography and history that makes it relevant. Things like "Acheans" or "Argonauts" are won't offend since they refer to Ancient Greece.

On another note, when Stanford dropped its "Indian" mascot the student body got to vote on a new mascot. They voted to be the Stanford Robber Barons but the name got nixed by the board.

So, see white names can be offensive / unreasonably censored too.

The Craig said...

But are these names insulting in a local sense? Are Seminols insulted by a team called the Seminols. While I would make the case that the Washington Redskins is insulting on its face, are tribe names insulting? The Army names it's helocopters after tribes (Blackhawk, Apache) and considers it an honor.

Tyler said...

So it would be alright to call one of the NFL Europe teams the "Braves" "Indians" or "Savages"? What if we changed the the name of the Boston Celtics to the "Inner City Zulus"? It is more appropriate. Their players are mostly West African blacks from the inner city. These examples would be ok because of geography right?

What was the reason Stanford did not adopt "Rober Barons"? Was it becuase it was offensive? I think it was because the name is just stupid. You need to name your team something cool not after rich 19th/early 20th centruy men.

Laura said...

It might also have something to do with the derogatory way these macots are portrayed. For instance, the tomahawk thing sort of makes it seem like Native Americans were complete savages, and whatnot. And you know, redskin is a pretty offensive term. It's like saying you'd name a team from a white area the Honkies, or a team from a black area the N-word (which I can't bring myself to type let alone say), or a team from San Francisco the Faggots. It's just not appropriate.