USC Commits Unforgivable Sin: Mascot’s Name is Similar to Robert E. Lee’s Horse
Gotta give it to this student group — they worked extra hard to find something racisty where none existed.
From the LA Times:
…the brief performance before USC kicked off its season against Georgia Tech turned into one of college football’s iconic traditions. A succession of white horses named Traveler have followed — Traveler IX debuts this fall — trotting out of the tunnel as “Conquest” plays and the costumed Trojan warrior atop the horse waves a sword. But during a rally earlier this week to show solidarity in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., a USC campus group linked the name to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, whose favorite horse was Traveller.At the rally, according to the student newspaper the Daily Trojan, Saphia Jackson, co-director of the USC Black Student Assembly, asked students not to be quiet, and reminded that “white supremacy hits close to home” and referenced the name of the Trojans mascot.The Black Student Assembly did not respond to requests for comment, but questions about the name’s provenance have increased on social media in the midst of the national discussion on race.Saukko died in 1992, but his widow wasn’t surprised when a reporter called Friday.“The problem is this: maybe three weeks ago it was fine,” Pat Saukko DeBernardi said. “So now the flavor of the day is . . . we all have to be in hysteria. . . . It’s more of a political issue. The horse isn’t political and neither am I.”
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