Editorial Calls Boone Debate "Waste Of Time"

From: DU Clarion Student Newspaper
by Alex Gallegos

I'm getting increasingly irked about the amount of time and resources spent on the endless debate about who or what DU's mascot should be.

I started to get concerned about this last year when the student body was surveyed not once but twice, to determine how we felt about potential mascots.

This is worrisome for a couple of reasons.

First, I wanted to know just how much money was going into this effort. I even went before the AUSA Senate with that question and though I was assured that the amount was minimal, a senator approached me in the following days who seemed to think that wasn't quite accurate.

I never did get an answer that satisfied me - one with a dollar sign in front of it.

But what also raised a red flag in my mind were the questions on this survey. Did I think a red-tailed hawk represented diversity? Did I think Boone fostered inclusiveness and academic excellence?

Let me pose another question along the same lines: Do you think ice cream is a fair representation of the socio-economic standards of our country?

It's a fairly stupid question, isn't it? But that's the kind of thing that the questionair was littered with.

Here is the crux of the matter, ladies and gentlemen: Boone is just a cartoon character.

Did you get that? Let me repeat it once more for you. It. Is. A. Cartoon. Character!

Cartoons don't represent diversity. They don't foster inclusiveness, and they're not representations of great academic success any more than Tony the Tiger is representative of the quality of a bowl of cereal.

Sure, he's recognized as going with the brand, but does the actual mascot tell you anything at all about what's inside the box when you buy it?

But what really bothers me about all of this is that it's an absolutely clear picture of the severely screwed up set of priorities that some folks have about things.

I'm continually shocked at the level of insanity that surrounds me here at this school. I mean, get your head out of the ivory tower for a moment and have a look around you, folks.

We're in a war we can't win.

The national debt is rising.

We're trying to decide who our next president will be in the midst of racial and political tensions.

Gas prices are out of control.

There's a food shortage, and the economy of this country is failing, and this is what you all worry about? What mascot we're going to stick on our banners at hockey games?

Honestly, I'm hard pressed to think of anything I care as little about as who DU's mascot is, but since I know that if I don't make some kind of declaration I'll be accused of sitting on the fence, I will say that I don't see a problem with Denver Boone.

What bothers me most of all is that we'd finished this discussion and made a decision and then a few people decided to get offended by this cartoon.

The response of today's molly-coddling world seems to be that we have to give everyone hugs and milk and cookies and that everyone should have a warm fuzzy feeling about everything.

My own personal view is that we should just tell people to shut up about it. Life is all about disappointments and unfairness and sometimes you just have to get over it instead of complaining about it.

As one final note, I will go ahead and propose my mascot idea that may go toward assuaging all the issues at play here.

I call for DU's new mascot to be Teagan, a gender-ambiguous character with a pet hawk who wears a traditional African headdress, has blond hair, the skin tone of a Pacific Islander, has Asian eyes, wears glasses, has a lacrosse stick strapped to his back, carries a burrito in one hand and a quantum physics book in the other while wearing a business suit, tennis shoes and a lapel pin of the international symbol of tourism, a pineapple.

Other bits of cultural significance can be glued on to the suit later if and when more people feel "marginalized."