Oh fer goodness sake…

Oh fer goodness sake; now the NCAA is considering banning Indian nicknames.

After wrestling with the politically delicate issue for more than four years, the NCAA may be close to rendering a verdict on the use of Native American mascots and nicknames — from Indians and Braves to Redmen and Savages — by 30 of its member universities.

The governing body will conduct the first in a series of summer meetings next month and could decide by August whether it can and should impose a ban on Indian imagery, which critics charge is demeaning and even racist.

If they’ll just replace those nicknames with those that supposedly “demean” whites, there won’t be any problem. Ask the “Fighting Whites” (Motto: “Every thang’s gonna be all white”), an intramural basketball team of “Native American and non-Indian students of the University of Northern Colorado”. The idea was to satirize and protest the whole Indian mascot thing, but it backfired when (imagine this) no one cared.

I first talked about the “Fighting Whites” 2 years ago when one of the team members, noting brisk sales of T-shirts and other “Fighting Whites” gear, had this to say: “It’s obvious some of the people are taking it the way it’s not supposed to be taken. They think it’s cool and we’re honoring the white man.” Silly me, I was supposed to be offended. Guess I didn’t get the memo.

By the way, if this ban is passed and some of these teams need a new mascot, just remember that the “Fighting Irish” and the “Fighting Scots” are already taken.

(Cross-posted at Blogger News Network. Comments welcome.)

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