Juulie,
I'm interested to get you feelings on this thread after putting so much into with so little validation from your peers (I'm sorry I'm so late to the party; I wish I could have closed ranks with you earlier). When I was in college at one of those "liberal elite institutions" as BITS is so fond of writing, I lived for these battles. Now, living in one of the reddest of red states, which happens to be one of the most poorly educated (coincidence? you decide), I have fewer kindred spirits around when such discussions arise. I thus end up feeling angry and then depressed, then angry again when the inevitable happens: "you know, there's a reason you're outnumbered." [Running fallacy count in discussions such as these: 1 (ad populem)]
The NCAA has not exercised the best of judgment, and has certainly not exhibited good
PR, but principally, they are correct. The problem as I see it is what it always is, and that happens to be where the NCAA is weakest here:
PR.
This is about rhetoric, which in this case means that the NCAA is behind the eight-ball from the start, because theirs is not the popular position (they have to win over lots and lots of people), and theirs is not the simple position (they have to make a very complex argument to lots and lots of people).
Allow me the rhetorical ploy of repetition: this is a very complicated set of questions we're dealing with. Imagery and the way it shapes a collective and individual consciousness, how those consciousnesses manifest themselves concretely in how we as individuals, families, communities and nations interact with each other and the world; these are very difficult things to describe, more difficult to understand, and more difficult still to explain to others (especially those who reject the notion that these are important questions, or questions without simple answers).
For those who haven't even a vague sense that imagery is impactful, the glib responses to the NCAA hold sway:
1)What about Notre Dame?
2)What about Texas A & M?
3)Well, why don't they just decide not to be affected/offended?
There are long (not necessarily difficult) answers to all three of these questions, as there are to all of the silly, inch-deep questions blithely asked to try to mock the thinking behind the NCAA's decision. The answer to all of these questions lies in understanding the dynamics of individual and societal power.
Nobody here has paid tuition to read my lecture on this, but I'll give the condensed, two-minute version of the semester-long class here, understanding fully that there are those who don't care what I write, their minds are made up, and those who will quibble with points that I cannot possibly develop fully given my constraints here. Nevertheless...
Whenever you find yourself listening to a so-called "PC debate," and you knee clocks your jaw as you exclaim, "Why are people so sensitive!", try to deprogram yourself for a moment and actually attempt to understand why it is that some people are offended about things that do not bother you. Notice I'm not asking you to side with them, simply to try to understand them.
Ask yourself how the imagery in pop culture of the Native American might affect how you think about Native Americans. How might the perceptions that such imagery engenders shape what students of 18th- and 19th-century American History bring to the table? What questions are they not asking? Why are they not more concerned with the abysmally incomplete picture they're given of what the US government has done to Native Americans in the history of this country? What questions would change if the imagery changed? What could we do if we changed the framework of debate?
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Look at Notre Dame. No one can reasonably say that the Notre Dame mascot has any appreciable impact on the way the Irish are viewed in this country. Actually, the game is actually given away on this point by the very people who ask, "What about Notre Dame?" These people don't believe the Notre Dame mascot makes a difference, so we shouldn't even waste our time on that question. These people may in fact believe that none of the Native American mascots makes a difference, either, but that is a question that can be responded to with evidence both concrete and inductive.
(For concrete evidence of how imagery matters, read Chief Justice Warren's opinion for the unanimous court in Brown v Board).
Well, I'll quit there because that was way over two minutes.
I'll close with an answer to 'glib question #3," in the form of a respone to a previous poster's question about privilege and what constitutes it. Knowing that Chuck will rightly criticize me for begging the question, here it is: if you believe that "sticks 'n' stones" isn't a crock, you're a person of privilege.