Animals are mascots - Seminole Indians are symbols

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

The New Yorker magazine's wonderfully urbane cartoons included an enduring favorite published in the late 1930s. In the drawing, an upscale couple has attempted to persuade a precocious toddler to eat something good for him. He wants no part of it, and it's obvious that they've fibbed and told him it is something that it quite plainly is not. The baby's blithe dismissal of the whole discussion is: "Well, I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."

These last few months, we've seen the latest attempt by the usual suspects to feed Florida State University some spinach by calling it something else and trying to make us feel guilty for not eating it.

The Indian-mascot crowd is at it again. First, let's define the terms. It's not by accident that the PC police deliberately use the words "mascot" and "nickname" in their rantings on this issue. One of their goals is to get even neutral parties to make routine use of the terms they choose. "Mascot" and "nickname" are used to lessen any argument on our part that our use of "Seminole" honors a courageous people.

When we speak of Osceola, we refer to him as an honored "symbol." The distinction between mascot and symbol is important.

"Human beings are not mascots," they say, and so they are correct. Osceola is not our "mascot," and neither are the Seminoles.

Uga the Bulldog at Georgia is a mascot, as is Florida's Albert the Alligator. At California-Irvine, they have Peter the Anteater. Now that's a mascot.

It is in keeping with our university's rich history that we selected the triumphant human spirit as our symbol. That unconquered spirit is perfectly characterized in the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

A foremost sculptor has been commissioned to create a twice-life-sized bronze statue of a mounted Seminole warrior. It will stand in front of the University Center Club at the end of Langford Green. The statue will symbolize the Florida Seminoles and their history as the only unconquered Indian people.

On April 13, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted 4-2 to urge non-Indian schools to drop the use of Indian images and team names. The Commission's vote has no force of law, but is seen by activists as an important weapon in their campaign to change the use of Indian names and symbols-they always use the terms "mascots" and "nicknames"-at educational institutions.

The commissioners may have sincere motives, but their information is incomplete. Commissioner Elise M. Meeks, a Sioux Indian, called Florida State's Osceola figure "comical, insulting and demeaning [because he is] dancing around."

I do not recall ever seeing Osceola dance around, or look in any way comical.

Two commissioners said the statement could divert attention from serious problems faced by the Indian population. The two got the statement changed to affirm the commission's respect for the First Amendment and freedom of expression.

The commission's vote has boosted the energies of the radicals. You will hear arrogant arguments directed at Florida State.

So far, the reaction of mainstream media columnists has been surprising.

Media commentator Roger Ebert wrote, "We live in the State of Illinois, named for the Illini Tribe of Native Americans. It was inescapable that the state university would celebrate an Illini Chief. The Chief was never a 'mascot,' and indeed goes so far back that he pre-dates the use of 'mascots' for most sports teams. A case could be made that he was the single most positive public image of Indians in Illinois."

Columnist Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe weighed in. "So this is what 'civil rights' has degenerated into," he wrote. "Does it really need to be pointed out how idiotic all of this is? No athletic team chooses a name or a mascot in order to bring contempt or disrepute on itself. On the contrary Cleveland's ballclub would never have changed its name to 'Indians' in 1915 if 'Indians' was an insult. If teams with Indian names portrayed them as savages or alcoholics, outrage would be the appropriate reaction. But they don't. They depict Indians and by extension themselves as noble, courageous and fierce. The Fighting Sioux is a title of honor just like The Fighting Irish."

Those who press this issue against us will not find our President Sandy D'Alemberte to be an easy mark, and they may make the mistake of attacking his character and credentials as a champion of civil rights. They will not be able to intimidate him, nor bully him, and they do not have the ability to defeat him in a contest of wills, nor of intellect.

When one of these sanctimonious actors from the fever swamps of America's political guerilla theater begins to take you to task about how you are a racist because you refuse to relinquish our honored tradition, tell them what you think of them and their charges.

Call it what it is. Well, actually, polite society discourages us from using the precise term, that two-syllable word for an agricultural by-product. I suppose we could employ a substitute term; "heifer dust" would do. Or, use "spinach" if you prefer. I say it's spinach and I say the hell with it.