There’s that word again. Everything is “racist” nowadays and kind of makes you wonder whether those that overuse the word actually understand its definition.
Social justice warriors throw around the powerful word more than a baseball on opening day.
And Long Island University just killed off its 84-year-old mascot because of backlash from the community accusing it of being racist.
There are a lot of controversial names, mascots and logos in professional sports that liberals want vanished; like the Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves.
The social justice warriors want those names removed because they deem them offensive to Native Americans even though the Washington Post did a study years ago that revealed those ancestors of indigenous peoples didn’t really mind – specifically with the Washington Redskins, which is inarguably the most controversial of those names.
Now it has spread to the collegiate level when Long Island University announced they would do away with their 84-year-old mascot, the “Blackbird,” after some of those in the community deemed it “racist.”
This came after a merger between Long Island University’s Brooklyn and Post campuses.
LIU athletic director Debbie DeJong said in a statement, “As Blackbirds and Pioneers, our past and present student-athletes have built a strong foundation of excellence which our alumni are rightly proud of. Now, as we unite our two campuses into a strengthened Division I program, a new mascot will unify our national brand as we enter a new era of excellence.”
And then on March 25th, twelve LIU alumni met with the school’s president, Kimberly Cline, to express their dismay towards the university’s decision. But according to a New York Post report, Cline told them they were getting rid of the mascot for several reasons.
Zach Braziller of the New York Post wrote, “They didn’t want to diminish Post in the merger. Cline also said the school has heard that the Blackbird is an offensive racist mascot. The group also asked Cline why not include Blackbirds and Pioneers as part of the ballot, but she said a marketing firm the school has consulted suggested to wipe the slate clean.”
Why do these community members and Post campus students believe that the mascot is racist?
It’s literally a bird. And, yes, it happens to be black, hence the name. How is that disparaging towards the African American community, assuming that’s what those who are offended by it are referring to? Isn’t that sort of racist in and of itself that these people concluded that the technical name for a particular species of bird is racist?
In “Moby Dick” when Captain Ahab is obsessed with killing Moby Dick the “white whale” is that racist against white people? In the novel, the white whale represents something you chase and chase and become obsessed with, but in the end, never get it. Does this offend white people too? Even Beluga whales are sometimes referred to as white whales.
One probable reason for this backlash stems from the movie “Dumbo,” – the original, not the remake. In the original, there is a group of “black birds” in Disney’s Jim Crow-era that are played by African American actors who talk with a slang that’s undoubtedly racist.
But those “black birds” in “Dumbo” were crows. Not blackbirds.
So that doesn’t help those social justice warriors’ case because they’re not even the same kind of bird.
Who knows why they think a blackbird mascot is racist.
There was never a justification for it.