Last Thursday, students at Cali State Long Beach found themselves, well, mascotless. Jane Conoley, the school’s president, said: “As our diversity grew and more voices were heard, we came to know that the 1849 California gold rush was a time in history when the indigenous peoples of California endured subjugation, violence and threats of genocide. Today, the spirit of inclusivity is reflected in our students, faculty, staff, alumni and community,” reported Daily Republic.
So what next? Must the San Francisco 49ers football team also be trashed in the name of inclusivity? And here’s the strangest part of this story: some students and faculty are apparently urging Cali State Long Beach not to model their next mascot on a person or group to prevent offending others or participating in that dreaded cultural appropriation. So that pretty much only leaves animals, right? And can we even use animals if they can’t give informed consent? Just asking questions, folks.
Speaking of animals, a petition for Louisiana State University to drop its live Mike the Tiger mascot has reached around a hundred thousand signatures, many…from…people whom I don’t think have been to Louisiana, much less the country. The petition, which Campus Reform reported, demands the school release Mike and says: “While the university has made efforts to improve the quality of the tiger’s enclosure, increasing its size and adding a variety of outdoor activities, it is cruel to sentence a tiger to such captivity. Animals are not here for our amusement.”
Captivity? This is kind of like calling the Garden of Eden a prison just because you can’t roam Earth, Hell, or purgatory. As Joshua Tucker, the LSU College Republicans chairman points out, Mike has a “huge fanbase that nearly worships him,” “top of the line medical care, and a staff that serves at his beck and call,” a “multimillion dollar habitat that has room for him to run and play and even a large swimming pool for him to swim in.”
Four-year-old Julia Hartwell attended Pentucket Workshop Preschool in Massachusetts, up until the school told her she couldn’t use “best friend,” reported CBS News.
That’s right, Julia can’t say the term “best friend.” But why best friend? Schools don’t like four-letter words and probably that five-letter word, Trump. But what could the benevolent, completely unbiased educators we let have unfiltered access to our children’s minds for half of the waking day possibly find problematic about best friends?
The alternative is, hey, let’s erase all distinctions that could give kids’ bad feelings like grades, teach them shouting and punching each other is just dandy and have them completely unprepared for the next grade, unless we erase that grade’s standards as well, and on and on until these numerical adults but mental and emotional infants get choke-slammed by this thing called REAL LIFE.
“Even now she goes to say it in a loving way; ‘I’m going to go see my best friend Charlie,’” the mother said. “And she looks at me sideways as she’s saying it and she’s checking in with me to see if that language is okay.”
