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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 29, 1991)
ERIC PFANNER Team mascots silly, insensitive The on-field action at this year’s World Series is over. The Minnesota Twins defeated the Atlanta Braves in one of the most exciting series of all time. The games had home runs, extra innings and clutch performances. As an extra bonus, however, the games spilled from the sports pages to the editorial sections of newspa pers. This involved, of course, the “tomahawk chop” that Atlanta Braves’ fans conducted with great ceremony. Crowds at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium may have liked participating in the chop, a sweeping arm motion accompanied by what I always thought was the Florida State fight song. Activist groups, particularly those concerned with achieving greater sensitivity toward Native Americans, were offended. With good reason. The issue is really not so much one of sensitivity as of common sense. We name athletic teams after aggressive, strong, fast, guileful, brutish characters. Obviously, if such mas cots arc placed on their uniforms, the players on the team will be aggres sive, strong, fast, guileful and brutish. Then they will defeat the other team. That practice runs into trouble when we use other human beings — or groups of human beings—as ath letic mascots. Calling Native Americans aggressive, strong, fast, guileful and brutish may have been acceptable decades ago when the Redskins, Seminolcs and Braves got their names and when John Wayne was in the movies. Now the practice is outdated and offensive. Worse yet, it is silly. If we are to do away with jhe names of groups of people as sports mascots, of course, the argument could be carried still further. One could argue that it is insensi tive to name teams after falcons, homed frogs and penguins. But realistically, only an obsessed animal rights activ ist or Merrill Lynch employee could claim that it is offensive to name a team after a buffalo. The biggest problem with names involves those about groups of people that aren’t considered offensive or don’t have an interest group to stand up for them. Examples include the Raiders, the Buccaneers, the Vikings One could argue that it is. insensitive to name teams after tokens* homed, frags and penguins* But realistically, only an obsessed animal rights activist or. Men rill Lynch enmhme could claim that it is offensive to name q team after a buffalo. and the Comhuskers. The problem here is one of defini tion. What exactly is a Raider? It could be a common criminal, a pirate or a gang member. “Vikings” could be considered offensive for the same reason that “Scminoles” is. But the last true Vikings died hundreds of years ago. Comhuskers is trickier because it creates a stereotype of Nebraskans as clumsy, cute, blond, slow and oafish. Nebraskans as a whole, however, are not an oppressed minority. The solution to the problem of names is simple. Don ’ t simply change the name to a more innocuous one, such as Stanford University did a few years back when it went from “Indi ans” to “Cardinal.” Eliminate all mascots, offensive or otherwise. The idea of mascots was stupid in the first place. While they were sup posed to intimidate, they actually provide more humor than fright. Who can keep a straight face while looking at a New England Patriots helmet? No wonder the team went 1-15 last year. Athletic teams in Europe are the beneficiaries of such thinking. In stead of having some cute animal or offensive depiction of a minority group on their helmets — if they used hel mets — European soccer teams are known by the names of their city or the club where they train: Inter-Mi lan, Bayem-Munchen or Juventus Turin. If the uniforms display any graph ics, they are the logos of the compa nies that sponsor them. The spread of the World League of American Football threatens this situ ation with teams such as the London Monarchs, Barcelona Dragons and Frankfurt Galaxy. Happily, however, the thinking behind European teams appears to be exhibiting an influence on this side of the Atlantic. In recent years, more and more college football bowl games have lengthened their names to include a corporate sponsor. Hence, we have the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl and others, including my personal favorite, the Thrifty Car Rental Holiday Bowl. One new game, the Blockbuster Bowl, has eliminated tne danger or insensitivity entirely by dropping any pretense of a cute name. Named teams won’t disappear from the American sporting scene over night, of course. They are as much a part of our tradition as racism. In the naming of expansion teams, at least, franchise owners seem to be showing some sensibility. The new baseball team in Denver was named the Colorado Rockies. It is very diffi cult to generate stereotypes of an entire mountain range, except perhaps to say that it is craggy or towering. Surely expansion owners would not name new teams the “Washing ton Whites” or “Atlanta African Americans.” If such names offend people, and surely they do, it is time for similar sensitivity toward a less-vocal ethnic group. If the Braves make a return appearance in the World Series, the “tomahawk chop” should be left at home. Pfanner is a senior news-editorial jour nalism major, the Daily Nebraskan’s opinion and wire editor and a columnist TWO ROOMS TWO ROOMS CELEBRATING THE SONGS OF ELTON JOHN & BERNIE TAUPIN 16 NEWLY RECORDED CLASSIC SONGS. 7S MINUTES OF MUSIC! INCLUDES, "YOUR SONG!' ' ROCKET MAN," "SATURDAY NIGHT'S ALRIGHT FOR FIGHTING1 AND "CROCODILE ROCK:’ Performed fly: Oieta A Jam.' Beach Boys Bon Jooi Kale Bush Enc Clapton Jot Cotkcr Phi! Collins Oates Mi:hati Sir.eei O’Connor St e wan Tina Turnti The ItTrr Columnist s abortion views empty rhetoric, make no sense I wish David Reiter would give up trying to convince us that his views on abortion make any sense. Earlier this semester, he attempted to compare Operation Rescue protesters to animal-rights extrem ists. He pointed out that the animal rights people believe the old Judco Chrislian view that man (humanity) is master over the animals, but he chose to completely ignore the fact that anti-abortion extremists are acting out the equally wicked lie that man (the male human) is master over woman. Now we have his Oct. 25 column, “Abortion politics frustrat ing,” based on two sentences of completely empty rhetoric: “The Republican Party exhibits a com mitment to traditional family values. The sanctity of human life is an essential component of this package of values.” Randall Terry, founder of Opera tion Rescue, recently said, “This country’s roots are in the Puritans and people who believed in Biblical values.” What the Puritans are best remembered for is the Salem witch hysteria that killed 19 women and one old man for having farms that were too successful. “Biblical val ues" were invoked as an excuse to hang these people. (It’s interesting that the Catholic Church did not equate abortion with murder until the mid- 1800s, when European and American women first began agitating for equality.) Today, Reiter’s “values” take the ^ form of vetoed family-leave bills, national health care as a pariah con cept, prenatal care left to struggling private groups such as Catholic So cial Services and parents going bankrupt raising disabled children. I know of this last situation inti- k mately, as I watch my own family edge toward ruin raising a beautiful spina bifida child without any public help. As Mr. Reiter continues his anti Brian Shellito/DN abortion campaign in the Daily Ne braskan, he crystallizes the true conflict here: It’s neither Democrat vs. Republican, but rather people who think for themselves vs. people who do not. Joan Ratliff Lincoln \ \ PolyGram Label Group^ Classic Elton John comes alive in this unique collection of his, and Bernie Taupin's, greatest hits. Songs like "Crocodile Rock", "Rocket Man", "Your Song", and many more. Artists such as Kate Bush, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Sting, Sinead O'Connor, The Who, and many others, perform these hits. CS. $6.97 CD. $10.97 Always the selection, plus the price. (^Pickles) V ^TAPES 81 CD’S^"^/ 17th a P« 3814 Normal* 237 S. 70th» 56th & Hwy 2
