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Problematic Insect
I understand that in today’s culture people on the Left are trying hard to out woke each other. I also know that colleges are the worst offenders. Despite all of that, when I saw this story I assumed it was some sort of parody.
Emory & Henry College is trying to decide if they should change their team mascot might have a negative impact on inclusion and diversity. Normally when you hear that the teams involved have some sort of Native American based name. But animal names?
It turns out that the racist name is the wasps. Now, I have been stung enough to hate the little creatures, but not because of the colors of their skin. Turn out, the flying demons are not the problem, but it is spelled the same as the acronym WASP. For those of you under 40, WASP stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and was a popular phrase decades ago.
It is not clear then if they want to change the name for the sake of WASPs, the way they want to change the Indians name so not to offend Indians, or if they want non-WASPs to feel included. Most of the people I grew up with were either Irish, Italian, or Jewish. I was a WASP and that made me a minority. I was neither proud nor ashamed. So, I really could not believe this story when I saw it.
Then I went to the college’s web site and read it for myself:
Conversations must examine how Emory & Henry’s past has contributed to current and ongoing systemic oppression. For example, discussion should be renewed regarding College’s mascot, the wasp, and the impact of this mascot on inclusion and diversity on our campus.
Here is the real problem. Racism can be an awful thing, but when we redefine it to be the wrong bug on a football helmet then you make it really hard for anyone to be sympathetic.
Published in General
When I was growing up, JAP’s was another acronym that’s fallen out of favor. Jewish American Princess.
I knew plenty of those, but I don”t think they’ll let you name your team the JAPs either
I think that’s actually not a wasp but a yellow jacket.
Jack Vance had wasps down, “…as malignant as a wasp.” Yellow jackets are just annoying.
Yellow Jackets are a type of wasp.
Too bad Yale didn’t go for an appropriate name like the WASPS years ago when it really fit.
Now they’d have to change both names.
Agreed.
I’m part of the New Thought movement, so I’m a WASNT.
I ran over a yellow jacket nest while on my riding lawn mower. It didn’t go fast enough to get away from them so I had to get off and run. I still had a bunch of bites.
Just from the way they look, I figured they were a type of bee.
“But this revolution has a distinctly 21st-century American flavor: Let’s hear it for liberté, égalité, stupidité. Has any people’s uprising ever been this moronic? It’s like a sketch-comedy spoof of history, Bastille Day reenacted by the characters from Anchorman.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/great-awokening-year-of-stupid/
Thought this must be K Williamson but no.
I am beginning to worry about my last name, “Gibson“. There is a cis-gendered patriarchal reference in the second symbol. Boom! Surely that must offend some snowflake with its blatant misogyny. Maybe I’ll switch to something less offensive, but I only want to change once. What set of letters could I pick that nobody would ever be offended by. Not just now, or in my lifetime, but ever offended by. English words and names are out, of course. Maybe Prince was smart with his symbol. Is a doodle future-proof?
Happy Birthday, ‘Merica!
Change the name to The Murder Hornets.
No, change it to The African Murder Hornets.
Multiple levels of cool, there, and you won’t have to swap out too much merch.
Letting the ignorant and hypersensitive police the language will make us all stupid.
One of my favorite cats was Miss FAP. She was a Feline-American Princess. Spoiled as can be, also beautiful, and she apparently knew it.
A slur on Asians . . . Georgia Tech – change your mascot!
Spiced it up for you . . .
That’s also a slur on the Tour De France, isn’t it?
They could change the name from the Wasps to the Hornets and that should effectively end racism.
Also, they could update their mascots from these guys . . .
To something like this . . .
that might eliminate the confusion.
And all those protesters . . .
And all of those ABC sportscasters
Is there any chance that the outcome of this important discussion will be that there has literally been no impact whatsoever on inclusion and diversity that is attributable to the College’s [sic] mascot?
I would think that is the only logical conclusion, but then I still believe that only women can birth babies, so maybe I’m not the right guy to ask.
I presume that hornets are verboten as mascots because they now conjure images of Asia and murder.
How dare you associate beauty with whiteness!
He jokes, but Situationism was a real French movement.
Any mascot that conveys a message of competitive superiority in any way must become taboo, which means all mascots must become taboo since conveying a message of competitive superiority is inherently the whole point of mascots.
Heck, if you made something as ubiquitous and generic as a glass of water your mascot it would still be an insult to people who live in arid climates.
“…that is attributable to…”
“Class, here we see the cis-normative insistence on strict causality and evidentiary standards that, rooted in an authoritarian and inherently patriarchical modality, is so typical of the oppressor. The writer also relies on the western hegemony’s narrow perspective on temporality to suggest that the conclusion must derive from the discussion, and not the other way around. We have much to learn from the many indigenous peoples whose languages do not impose such a limited, one-way structure on time and causality. Your assignment for the long weekend is to burn down a convenience store. Class dismissed.”