pngfanatic said:
Okay, I'm gonna give you a pass on the whole "assuaging progressives" thing since, from the looks of it, you aren't a particularly active member of the board and probably haven't seen most of my politically oriented posts. Suffice it to say that you're talking to the last person who wants to "assuage progressives." Matter of fact, I spent the better part of my high school career antagonizing them on this very website. Feel free to go back and look if you don't believe me.
I don't think "assuaging progressives" is the winning strategy. I think beating them is the winning strategy, and you don't accomplish that by making yourself, your cause, your community and everyone associated with you look like a backwoods, liberal-hating fool. I guarantee you that I'm just as firmly planted on the right side of the political spectrum as you are - in fact, I'd bet good money that I'm more conservative than you are in certain respects. But whatever my ideological leanings may be, I'm also a politico. Politics has been a lifelong interest of mine; I grew up around it in this area, and it was my field of study in undergrad. I can tell you from a significant amount of personal, practical and academic experience that politics is not a game of ideologies, facts, debates, truths, principles or policies as purists like me (and I suspect you) would like it to be.
Politics, particularly today, is an image-driven game in an increasingly image-conscious society. We don't live in a world where the majority of people make a decision based on what they think about something, we live in a world where the majority of people make a decision based on how they feel about something, and how they feel about something - in other words, the perception they hold of a particular person, group of people or issue - is often shaped by the medium they use to gather information - in other words, media spin. It is so easy in this day and age for people, political groups and institutions to be made to look like things they're not because of people out there who are very, very good at twisting words and bending facts to create an image that misrepresents reality. The folks on the other side of the aisle understand this far better than anyone on our side of the aisle ever has, with perhaps the lone exception of Ronald Reagan; they're called the "vocal minority" for a reason. That's why someone like Hilary Clinton, who bears at least partial responsibility for the death of a US ambassador and whose foundation regularly violated federal law to accept donations from overseas entities while she was Secretary of State, is running for president with substantial financial and popular backing instead of sitting in a jail cell right now. Popular opinion is a powerful force that is easily swayed and rarely based in objective truth.
Don't believe me? Let's look at an example from right here in Texas. We have college students (supposedly our best and brightest) and a media complex at this state's flagship university who think a statue was responsible for mass shootings and violence against minorities all its own, despite the earnest intentions behind the erection of that statute. This past summer, they were successful in getting that statue removed from public display. Why? Because they were successful in portraying imagery that imputed racism where there wasn't any, misconstrued history, made the statue out to be victimizing and made people who either didn't care about the statue or didn't think it should be moved out to be accomplices in the victimization. And because that imagery, in conjunction with similar imagery being portrayed in other parts of the country, swung public opinion behind their cause. I could offer other, similar examples of image having an effect like this, but I don't think I need too. You can probably think of them on your own.
Now, how does that play into this situation? Because (1) it shows that John Q. Public will buy into anything where the word "racism" gets thrown around, (2) that public opinion is outcome-determinative in these situations and (3) that if someone can make you out to look like a victimizer, you're done for. This is why it's so incredibly important for PN-G to emphasize the real reasons underlying the use of the American Indian likeness here - the local history, the relationship with the Cherokee Nation and so on, instead of some inflated rhetorical monologue about "political correctness" and "leftist extermism." A growing number of people consider the average American to be racist, homophobic, uneducated and any other negative adjective you can think of. That image is already ambient in the collective mind of the American public. If someone wanted to come after PN-G for its mascot, all they would need is a little bit of evidence of racism in this community to run on, and they could paint us right into that corner. The moment that happens, condition #3 is met. All it'll take is for public opinion to turn against us and the PN-G Indians are done for. That's why so many other sports teams have already changed their name, and it'll likely be the case with more. Frankly, we got lucky this time; if this had been a year or two ago when there was so much backlash against the Redskins, we probably would have gotten swept up in the media hype, and we wouldn't have the advantage of being a privately owned NFL team with millions of dollars in commercial sales to help us weather the storm and a full PR staff to do damage control for us. Our best bet is to be proactive and keep the focus on the right things, not to give the liberals out there fuel for the fire. Focusing on our history and our connection with the Cherokee Nation isn't just the right thing to do because it is, in fact, the reason we have our mascot, it's the necessary thing to do if we're to sustain that tradition.
