That’s right: the University of Denver, where I once taught argument, lit, and theory — and where Brian Kiteley, as head of the creative writing program and a champion of the free expression of novelists, finds certain ideas unpalatable and in need of censorship if not shunning (not things of the American Psycho or Lolita or Ulysses or Portnoy’s Complaint variety, though; literary danger arises instead in brief polemics or political cartoons that posit a potential logistical civil war in the US, or Obama’s metaphorical raping of liberty, which is racist, because only blacks ever engage in rape), has decreed that it’s former mascot, “Denver Boone,” is too offensive and politically incorrect to be brought back, despite wide-spread support for his return — evidently by those mouthbreathing morons and politically incorrect buffoons who don’t see in the cartoon the historical hatred that is forever embedded in its contours, the racism, the misogyny, or the spirit of unrealistic individualism that is infused in its symbology (which individualism, if unfulfilled by those who graduate the university with enormous debt and no real job prospects, would give lie to the implied pioneering promise he represents).
[Officials at the University of Denver] announced they won’t reinstate “Denver Boone,” who was retired in 1998 as mascot for the UD Pioneers, despite calls to bring him back.
Boone originally had been replaced by a red-tailed hawk named “Ruckus” but the bird never soared high with the student body and was scrapped in 2007, leaving the school without a mascot. Fast forward and the school decided to put together a committee last spring to determine the new mascot, but Boone was not even considered.
“Boone was a polarizing figure that did not reflect the growing diversity of the UD community, but rather was an image that many women, persons of color, international students and faculty members found difficult to relate to as defining the pioneering spirit,” Chancellor Robert Coombe said in a March letter to the school community.
University officials also claim that Boone was not up for consideration because of a consensus by the student body that it wanted an entirely new mascot — despite numerous Facebook postings to the contrary.
— One is entitled to ask — and I shall — who the fuck cares what “many women, persons of color, internati0nal students and faculty members” find “difficult to relate to as defining the pioneering spirit”? That is to say, why grant deference to these professional victims and purveyors of false signfication, when you can easily remove all their power by every once in a while standing up to their ridiculous protests — in this case, by reminding them that Daniel Boone was a rugged pioneer and is considered an American icon; that a coon skin cap is actually from a raccoon, and is not a “racist” dog whistle for some other homophonic signifier that can be conflated with the intended sign in order to create a conflict that only exists by way of insisting there is one; and that — the only way, it seems, to avoid indictments for misogyny — would be to use a female mascot, or a transgendering mascot, or an asexual mascot, which thinking, when pursued to its logical end, suggests that the very choice of a man over a women, even in something representative such as a mascot, is inherently sexist; whereas the opposite is “progressive” rather than sexist or misandrist.
As for the discomfort international students might feel being confronted by a symbol of southwestern pioneering spirit here in the US? Perhaps they should either learn to live with it, or else not attend a university tied proudly to the pioneering spirit of the southwestern US. But wait: there’s a real historical concern here, says Professor Randell Jones!
Boone was a legend of early American history and the archetypal hero of the American Western Frontier.Later, his image and legend fell victim to revisionist history as he became associated with the forceful displacement of Native Americans from their land.So how closely linked are Denver Boone and Daniel Boone? “
Any association of the Denver Boone caricature with America’s pioneer hero, Daniel Boone, is misguided,” said Randell Jones, historian and author of the book “In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone.”
“Mythology and Fess Parker aside, it is well documented that Daniel Boone never wore a coonskin cap. Neither did he wear a beard. Moreover, any exploits by him west of Missouri are speculative at best.”
Of course, my defense of this cartoon marks me as a reactionary hillbilly bigot not fit to join the esteemed ranks of professional victims and their intellectual enablers.
Which is why I elected not to join them to begin with.
But let me just address Professor Jones’ concerns: as with many cartoons or caricatures (and the mascot field is rife with them: the San Diego Chicken, for instance, shows an ability oftentimes to outwit umpires and deploy an opposable thumb — something many real world chickens would never be able to pull off, unless they were playing tic-tac-to against, say, Eva Longoria or Katie Perry), exaggerations or attendant attributes are not intended to be historically accurate; rather, they play upon a mythology that promotes a lesson. Boone was tied historically to pioneering spirit. And it is to that the mascot refers, intentionally so.
What Professor Jones wants to do is resignify the mascot — to create from a cartoon a kind of constraining literalism to justify his fetish for deconstructing America’s rugged-individualist “mythos” — in a bit of laughable, pseudo-intellectual post hoc justification.
He may as well be attacking Disney for all its talking animals — which, historically, have proven rare. At least, those who use English and are able to form musical numbers extemporaneously.
The American university is where the free exchange of ideas — and real intellectualism — goes to die. And this is so because it is run by timid bureaucrats who cave to leftist identity politics.
If I knew any contemporary University of Denver students, I’d have them make this very argument. Right there, in the middle of the tiny free speech zone the university likely sets aside for those it has failed to properly indoctrinate.
I’m embarrassed for the university, frankly. But then, I’ve been embarrassed for academia in general for quite some time.
But because my concerns have always revolved around “fundamentally unserious” questions of language, interpretation (and in this case, textual or iconographic instances of same), my embarrassment doesn’t carry much weight.
So it is what it is.
(h/t Terry H)
You could follow Ohio State’s lead and use a grotesquely anthropomorphized nut as a mascot.
Of course, there’s likely something offensive about that as well, other than the obvious “dude with a gigantic nut for his head” thing.
Now that I think of it, you’d be much better off as the U of D Breeze, or the Continental Dividers, or maybe the Coexisters.
It makes me sad that the frontier spirit of freedom and individuality is now considered “white” and “non inclusive” according to some academics.
The perfect mascot for all those, not feeling included by Denver Boone, folks, was proposed and named right here.
Just for the DUI’s, Pikachump.
As long as the University of Denver is seeking to right 19th century wrongs, perhaps the faculty could donate, oh say, 25% of it’s salary to the Southern Cheyenne in penance for Sand Creek. After all, Colonel Crittenden launched his raid against Black Kettle from Denver. That would be more meaningful than railing against a cartoon loosely connected with someone who never got west of St. Charles County, Missouri.
Shit. Second line, substitute “its” for “it’s.” Carry on.
I propose that the new mascot be a white rat with a few black spots, wearing high heels, and joyfully holding a soviet flag in his left hand while urinating on the US Constitution, and his/her name is Suxta Biyou Kracka. That should be inoffensive.
Quite apart from the serious nature of the piece, this part made me laugh. Classic Jeff G.
My objection to Denver Boone is that he’s an poorly drawn cartoon. Kinda bland, nothing comic to it.
They couldn’t make him hypermasculine or what?
Are you thinking more like the Brawny guy?
“Thinking”? What are you, some kind of racist?
{/hair trigger victimology}
Moreover, any exploits by him west of Missouri are speculative at best.”
They should be renaming the State of Washington any day now.
Any. Day. Now.
Yeah, and something like a (Santa Cruz) banana slug is totes relatable.
At least they didn’t accuse the DU mascot of being all rapey like that Husky.
Drumwaster, naming land formerly occupied by Indigenous Persons after European Hegemonic Slaveholders (Washington) is racist-racist-racist.
Also, sullying the pure and innocent language of Indigenous Person by using it to name land (Snohomish, Dakota, Ohio, Mil-ee-wauk-eh) occupied by European Hegemonic Slaveholders is racist-racist-racist.
Look, here in SLC, Jordan High School Beetdiggers have a better mascot.
If you can make a beet digger look like a badass, why not Daniel Boone?
As if they’dve had you.
Way ahead of you.
Still can’t figure out how the Philadelphia Phillies get a pass.
A Phillie is a cigar. A cigar. Cigars are brown.
You don’t have to be Fellini to figure out the Philadelphia Phillies are, in effect, the Philadelphia Smallish, Black, Penises.
Racist, sexist and insulting.
I’d suggest a steaming crock o’ shit, but that might be too close to Crockett, and then we’d have to start all over again.
Plus the tongue on that (clearly phallic) Phanatic? So built of for oral pleasuring of women. Which is offensive to many women — though admittedly, mostly the kind who no man would ever dream of orally pleasuring, at least without a serious run in with tequila, and a bit of temporary feminist self loathing.
I like the cartoons where the raccoon skin cap is a live raccoon curled up sleeping on the Boone character’s head.
He doesn’t look like his eyes are all that rapey, so I can’t figure out why DU students would object. Although, according to the story, the committee (not the students) object to Boone.
As an alum, Jeff, you should suggest changing the mascots to the Egrets, just for the irony.
Clearly phallic, Jeff? I’m pretty sure we call that thing the Philly Phleshlight for a good reason.
And don’t get me started on the Cleveland Browns.
Are these guys serious? I mean it. Next time you’re out and about, in a coffeshop enjoying some chai or maybe even sucking wifi for your MacBook on the front steps of a public library, just mention to the frizzy-haired, bespectacled, tights-wearing, vision of loveliness (on Easter, when her mom makes her wear a dress in exchange for dinner) who’s tagging the “No Loitering” sign with a blue Sharpie, that you’re looking forward to watching the “Browns” play football. Can you imagine explaining yourself?
“The Brrrrooowns? Sha.”
“Yeah. The Browns. You know, Yo Yo Yo, Woof Woof? The Dawgs, Yo?”
“You bark at the ‘Browns’?” (finger quotes)
“Well, yeah. Everyone does. When we go to the game we’ll take off our shirts and put chains around our neck or spiked collars or maybe even a leash. We call it the “Dog Pound”
“Reeeaaaally”
“Yup. Love me some fightin’ dawgs.”
“You know, as despicable as it is to us (and I was seriously considering a rescue, but they only had males at the shelter and I’d have to walk it and I refuse to be led by a male anything), it’s not a nice thing to caricature deeply ingrained cultural mores. The brutality of 400 years of slavery is going to leave a psychic mark on a people. It’s reprehensible that in this day and age, when we have a black president, that people like you still think it’s ‘fun’ (more air quotes) to use the very culture that white men created to humiliate a far more noble race while forcing them to commit violence against one another in gladiatorial combat. You sicken me. I bet you played lacrosse in high school.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize. I usually root for the Patriots.”
“Obviously. I knew you were one of them.” (stuffs MacBook Air, Sharpies, paint pens, moleskine notebook, and half of a falafel back in her scruffy LL Bean backpack and tries to stomp off but actually sorta slaps off because she hasn’t really broken in her new $50 pair of Chuck Taylors yet)
She just needs to be ravished by a proper Viking.
You patriarchs think penis is the answer to everything. /feminazi
I think a kitten playing with a ball of yarn is a good mascot for DU.
The penis mightier than the sword!
How about a bear taking a shit in the woods? Or a Porcupine juggling lemons with a dulcimer at his feet and the dulcimer have three stars on it. Or an evil black rifle with a bayonet lug and that shoulder thing that goes up attached.