The World Needs More Ninjas

A decent rebuttal to the NCAA’s decision to ban Native American mascots in the postseason. First off, the half-way decision doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Either the NCAA thinks using “hostile” and “abusive” mascots is wrong or it’s not. As best I can tell, their decision says that it’s kinda sorta wrong. It’s like the way Iowa or Wisconsin won’t play out-of-conference schools with mascots they don’t agree with, but when it comes to losing money and breaking tradition by not playing the University of Illinois Fighting Illini, then it’s OK to play despite the mascot. Basically, they think it’s wrong, but not wrong enough to take a drastic action that might have a major backlash.

As someone who’s heard constant bickering about Chief Illiniwek and the Fighting Illini from both sides, I think the decision is stupid. If UIUC wants to decide on a new mascot, then let them decide…there’s not need for the NCAA taking lame measures to try to influence UIUC’s decision. I’m pretty sure the university is quite capable of sorting it all out itself.

Quite honestly, I think that while there are a couple of mascots that use what could easily be considered slurs (e.g., Redskins, Savages), by in large there’s nothing hostile and abusive about Native American mascots in general. Chief Illiniwek’s dance is actually pretty freakin’ cool and it’s by no means done in the caricature-type method that a lot of mascots use. And by cool, I mean cool in a Dances With Wolves or Last of the Mohicans cool. Amazingly, it doesn’t make be feel like going out and belittling Native Americans.

For more evidence that this may be political correctness run amok, check out this post on the Daily Kos, the mostly widely read liberal blog on the net. Even the poll (which is, of course, completely unscientific) shows has less than 10% favoring an across the board ban on Native American mascots. Again, there’s a good chance that these voters aren’t exactly Rush Limbaugh listeners.

A couple of other interesting notes about the NCAA’s statement. Notice that section where they name 14 schools that they consider to have non-hostile and non-abusive mascots? Almost all of those schools use “Warriors” as a mascot. That’s right, it took a bunch of people with PhDs to determine that a warrior is not hostile.

Also, what’s up with the NCAA saying it’s OK for the University of North Carolina-Pembroke to continue using the Braves as their mascot because their Native American enrollment was deemed “sufficient”. Either the mascot is hostile and offensive or it’s not…I don’t see how enrolling a certain number of Native Americans changes that. But then again, I’m not the NCAA. By their rationale, if UIUC or Florida St. were to increase their Native American enrollment above some magical threshold, all of a sudden their mascots would cease to be hostile and abusive.

Of course the bigger question is why just stop at Native American mascots? Two words:

Fighting Irish

I’ve never heard a sufficient explanation as to whey their mascot is not hostile and abusive while Native American ones are. If ever there was a mascot that caricatured a group that has faced discrimination in a negative manner, the leprechaun is it.

Just to review ramifications the NCAA’s decision:

Hostile and Abusive:

Not Hostile and Abusive:

Hostile and Abusive:

Not Hostile and Abusive:

An what of all those other mascots that could offend some one and, thus, be hostile and abusive? How about Wake Forest’s Demon Deacon? This is pretty much the same as a school naming its mascot the “Infidel Imam”…I highly doubt that would be be considered non-hostile and non-abusive. I’m pretty sure clergy members are a minority in our society.

How about the alma mater of the NCAA president, Myles Brand…the Indiana Hoosiers. Turns out no one really knows the exact origin of the mascot, but it’s possible that:

“By extension, it was attached to a hill-dweller or highlander and came to suggest roughness and uncouthness,” Peckham states. “Thus, throughout the Southeast in the eighteenth century, ‘Hoosier’ was used generally to describe a backwoodsman, especially a n ignorant boaster, with an overtone of crudeness and even lawlessness.”

Sounds pretty derogatory to me…definitely hostile and abusive towards the highlanders.

How about the University of Pennsylvania’s Quakers? Seems like that might be kind of offensive having the mascot encouraging its team to defeat it opponents considering that the Quakers are pacifists.

And what of the Ragin’ Cajuns? The Spartans? The Trojans? The Cowboys? All of these are using some cultural group, past or present, as a mascot. Why stop at Native Americans?