ESPN Page 2 - Pearlman: Aimed at the alma mater
So this made me think. Which is what I generally ask of any decent sports article. I have been fortunate that with the exception of Grad school my team nicknames were rather innocuous or basic animals. And in fact my favorite Pro teams also meet that criteria.
But he does make me think of one thing: what makes something a tradition? And at what point do you resign yourself and accept the "tradition" as reasonable justification? 20 years? 50? 100? And when do you say, I don't care how old or revered it is, this tradition has to go? And then how do you convince people that a tradition like this deserves to be trashed?
When I was attending Ole Miss the school was going through the painful stage of ridding itself of a few traditions: the use of the Confederate battle flag at games as a symbol of the school, and playing "Dixie" at half time. These clearly fell into the category of too much negatives vs. no matter how old. And I don't know if the Native American nicknames fall into that category, but I can't say for sure, so I will throw open the matter for dsicussion.
Very interesting questions, Mike! I have been pondering them. One difference between the Old Miss and Native American situations is the nature of the objection. In one case, the nickname is suposedly sullying the team; in the other, the team is supposedly sullying the nickname. In each case, the objectors are claiming (at least partial) ownership of something, either team or name, and that you should not sully what they own. The two most common responses are denial of ownership, or denial of sullying; The only other obvious response is denial of the right to have something you own not sullied. I think most objectors will use the denial of sullying approach: "I don't think it is offensive to have a characteristic of a person used as a team nickname."
ReplyDeleteI made the point about Ole Miss more as a case where Tradition is not a good reason to hold onto something i.e. the battle flag or Dixie. It was more of a retort to those who say that keeping the offensive names is 'holding with tradition'.
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