The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, October 29, 1991, Page 5, Image 5

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    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 Now the practice is outdated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