What the fuck?...
I had this brilliant little post on why I embrace and yet qualify thinking of myself as a liberal, these days...much as I embrace but qualify my identification as white trash, these days...
And then I lost much of it...I'm working on recreating it...
In the meantime...
NCAA Bans Native American Mascots in Postseason...
What the fuck?...
I hope the Florida State President fights this and wins this in court...
This is insulting to Florida State and all such teams in the extreme...
That certain Native American groups think that they can/do speak for all Native Americans...and that a school that has worked with Florida Seminole tribes around this issue...
For all of that to be nullified...and for them to be tarred as racists because they use a term that racist Native Americans don't like is...well...
RACIST...
And it's bullshit...
Interestingly, enough...
A professor that I worked with on race issues when I conducted race dialogues on campus as a part of my grad school experience, Cornell Pewewardy, presented the historical analysis that led the committee to make its decision...
Response of The Honor the Chief Society webpage at the University of Illinois to the NCAA ruling on team mascots...
I worked with Cornell in race dialogues...and I have to admit that I was struck, too, that Cornell's perspectives on race were biased against whites and in favor of the idea that the relationship between whites and Natives was consistently one of oppression...which is not the case...
The Honor the Chief Society, by the way, is the University of Illinois' effort to preempt such criticisms and to put their own Chief Illiniwek mascot in historical perspective...
The Honor the Chief Society at the University of Illinois...
As the Honor the Chief Society points out...it's not just Chief Illiniwek who is a part of Illinois heritage...it is the name of their state, Illinois, itself, which is named after the loose confederation of Native tribes in the region -- the Cahokia, Tamaroa, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, and Peoria -- through 1818, when Illinois became the nation's 21st state IN HONOR of the Native tribes that inhabited this region...
Why would a group of people name their state after a group that they are supposed to disdain?...they wouldn't...Whites and Americans did much to treat Natives badly over the course of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries...but they did much to honor and treat them well, as well...and naming their state and their team mascots after their tribes was one of those ways of honoring those same tribes...
If these folks were mocking Natives...that would be one thing...
But they're not...
They're celebrating them...
And they have the right to celebrate the Seminole Indians if they want...
All forces of political correctness to the contrary...
The NCAA is WAY OUT OF LINE to demand anything different...
As Dennis Dodd writes brilliantly on the CBS College Sports website...
NCAA takes a stand that isn't much of one...
Teams like Illinois and Kansas, where Dr. Pewewardy works, are in big trouble if we start banning all Native references in team names...because both of their states', universities', and teams' names are based on names of Native tribes...
And what about roughneck Texans who might be offended by the Texas A&M Aggies?...or people of Irish descent who might be offended by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish?...or Cajuns who might be offended by the Ragin' Cajuns of Louisiana Layfayette?...
And then the NCAA decides it's going to step up penalties for schools with student-athletes with low grades...
I have a modest proposal...
How about death for all students who don't get above a C...
That sounds about right to me...
All those lazy, stupid athletes will surely be motivated by the threat of death to get better grades, don't you think?...
Have we all just gone COMPLETELY FUCKING INSANE...
Grades aren't designed, as they are currently given, for everyone to get A's...I want athletes to do better work...but this is about the most back-asswards, foolish, dumbass way to get there that I have ever seen...
And do you know what is so COMPLETELY IRONIC about this proposal?...
What IN THE FUCK would members of some NCAA grades commmittee know about getting good grades?...
You think these morons get on the rules committee by making good grades?...
Fat chance...
Because the folks who make the best grades and do the best work go on to be people like professors and teachers and those who make the most outstanding contributions to their field...
And...more importantly...
The people who do THE BEST in school DON'T necessarily get the best grades...
Many of them...like Joseph Campbell...the greatest cultural theorist of the twentieth century...or Roald Dahl...the eminent writer of works like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach...drop out of school...
Still others...like Albert Einstein...get told that their work is "irrelevant and insignificant"...the same work that went on the revolutionize the world of physics...
I made pretty good grades in both undergrad and grad school...and I imagine I am far smarter than many of those folks on the NCAA grades committee in matters that count...
And I know for damned sure that this is about the most goddamned foolish way that I've ever heard of supporting students to make better grades...
The sad part is that many student athletes do try to make better grades...and are often very discouraged that their efforts are not recognized...because they are often just not as smart as other students...at least they are not at the same intellectual level, in that moment...and so they are behind the curve of smarter students and trying to catch up...having everyone expect that they both catch up AND win national championships, never satisfied with athletes, when they don't do either...or, in the case of many of the stronger teams on the NCAA list, when they only do one of the two...
Do people really expect that all athletes can both get the best grades and all win national championships?...a few, like Bill Bradley, do (not in college, where his Princeton Tigers were 3rd at the NCAA tournament in 1965, his senior year, rather than champions...but he did win two championships in the NBA with the New York Knicks...a rarity for a person who is a Rhodes' scholar to be sure)...
...and yet everyone and their momma incessantly moan and bitch when ALL college atheletes don't do what Bill Bradley was only able to do twice in his college and professional entire career, but never in college...fans and others constantly bitch and moan and bitch and moan when they athletes don't do either...win championships...or get the best grades and do the best intellectual work...and when they don't comply with every other arbitrary bitch and moan that they have about college athletics...
Like what kind of mascot they have...
This is power run amok...all of it...
Love,
Ben
