Monday, May 4, 2015

Lunacy and American Higher Education

Students Demand Colored, Gay “Companions”
For White College Mascot

Down Trend
Students at New Jersey’s Rutgers University are demanding that their white, male, blue-eyed mascot is racist and they demand he have “companions.”
Just like all the happy furry, differently colored friends on Sesame Street, students are woozy with the thought that their white mascot may not represent the diversity that is Rutgers, Campus Reform is reporting.
Freshman Emmet Brennan was the first crybaby to notice that their mascot isn’t gay, or black or transgender or anything but the evil Caucasian.
Brennan said there “were some concerns over the mascot possibly being offensive if it wasn’t done properly.” To assuage those concerns, Brennan consulted with the university’s black, Latino, and Asian cultural councils and has encouraged his peers to contribute to the process of creating diverse mascot friends.
“What we were really hoping is that this would be a discussion with the entire student body,” Brennan said. “So we would have a working committee of the different multicultural [groups], possibly the Queer Caucus — basically students who represent a unique voice, and have them all working together at the same table to make sure red flags that arise with any of those groups — that mascot would immediately be tabled.”
According to Brennan, the decision to create additional mascot friends rather than eliminate the current Scarlet Knight stems from his expectation that some alumni and administrators would be reluctant to replace something so traditional.
“There’s always going to be people who complain, but I think we won’t receive that much pushback because we are keeping the current knight,” Brennan said. “We’re just, I think, taking pride in our current diversity as a school as we are now, but also recognizing where we were.”