Anti-Warrior Elitism (From an Alum)

Dan Carpenter is a Marquette alumnus, columnist for the The Indianapolis Star and describes himself as “a left-lunatic student and campus newspaper editorialist during the late 1960s.”

So it’s not surprising that he was happy when the “Warrior” nickname was dropped.

But what is especially interesting is the elitist logic he uses in support of his position. In an article titled “World without Wompum [sic]” He admits:

As far as I could tell, only the politicized minority of American Indians themselves were passionate about the issue, a manifestation of social inertia that has counterparts in black fan support for segregated baseball in the 1930s and women’s acceptance of all-male fire departments before the 1970s.

Whether you’re a Seminole making a business deal with Florida State University or a Shawnee who’s barely aware there’s a football team in Washington, D.C., you’ll tend to flow with the tide of the way it’s (seemingly) always been. Keep this in mind the next time a defender of the status quo piously points out that he’s heard little or no objection from an exploited minority group. Like the rest of us, they’re trying to get along. It’s up to the best of us, regardless of whether we’re affected personally, to go on the warpath for social change.

So the people who want to do away with Indian mascots and nicknames are the “best” people, and don’t need to care much what the “less than the best” think.

Not only does Carpenter not know how to spell “Willie Wampum,” he recites all the standard politically correct rhetoric. For example, he explains that:

Given the genocidal treatment of America’s native peoples by the European settlers and their more subtle heirs, the use of Indian caricatures to sell beer and whip up stadium crowds strikes me as arrogant at best. . . . Dropping the nicknames and mascots has to be one of the easier acts of reparation the ruling class will ever confront. . . .

Yes, Indians are a “victim” group, and therefore anything claimed to be done on their behalf — no matter how patently absurd — has to be accepted.

Things like affirmative actions preferences and quotas that favor Indians, and lucrative Indian gambling monopolies may be ethically questionable, but at least they are things that benefit Indians (or at least some lucky Indians). Doing away with mascots and nicknames doesn’t benefit Indians at all. Some “reparations.”

Carpenter even asserts that:

A generation has come of age knowing only “Golden Eagles” for Marquette’s teams; and as drab as that fallback is, it survived a recent alumni referendum against “Warriors” (resurrected by some older diehards waving big donations) and the utterly lusterless “Marquette Gold.”

In reality, the only poll that pitted “Warriors” against “Golden Eagles” saw “Warriors” winning by a massive majority among alumni, a lopsided majority among students, and even a narrow majority among the (more politically correct) faculty.

Carpenter, during his years at Marquette writing for the Tribune, not only didn’t learn how to spell “Wampum,” he didn’t learn much in the way of logic either. But he did learn the poisonous elitism of the politically correct.