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Originally Posted by JRutledge
Not sure exactly what point you are trying to make,
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Actually, the point I was trying to make was pointing out the difficulty of trying to determine what is offensive, and what isn't. In this instance, the NCAA made the blanket policy that all Indian mascots are considered offensive and racist. Since they cannot (supposedly) dictate to member schools what mascot they use, the NCAA determined they can dictate what schools host post-season tournament games, based on those mascots. This is obviously a money issue, as the NCAA is hoping to influence the schools by depriving them of the revenue from those post-season games. In the case of Florida State, the reason the Seminole Tribe signed off on the use of the mascot is because the university donates a large amount of money to the tribe.
You're not exactly correct about the U of I's symbol; it is based upon the Illinwek tribe, which was largely based in Illinois, but is a currently extinct tribe.
So, there just seems to be a bit of hypocrasy in the NCAA's position. It is very obvious it is a money issue, not a moral one. If Indian mascots are offensive, then they
all are, not just the ones who didn't contribute large amounts of money to the (apparently non-offended) tribe. In the case of the U of I, since there are no current tribe members available to contribute towards, that symbol must be offensive. But who's offended? Certainly not any of the specific tribal members. It was just extremely ironic that the situation played out where the U of I, home of the (offensive?) Chief Illiniwek, was not allowed to host that game, and had to travel to Florida State, home of the (non-offensive?) Seminoles?
So, who gets to make the decision as to what is offensive and what isn't? You and I might have differing opinions, so if we're working a game together with a player that has a Confederate flag tatoo, it might be offesive to you but mean absolutely nothing to me. Should we arm-wrestle to see if you get to tell the player it should be covered, or I get to tell him to play on? Rock, paper, scissors, perhaps?