PC Virus

You thought this was a place to come get your computer fixed. Wrong. The PC and the virus I’m talking about have to do with Political Correctness, and now it’s open season on sports teams. The latest wave started with the Washington Redskins. OK, that name might actually be considered a racial slur. If Bob Costas says it is, it must be.

But a high school in the Southern California desert whose teams are known as the Arabs is coming under criticism from some quarters. Coachella (you know that name) Valley High’s mascot is an angry-looking hook-nosed Arab, which some Arab-Americans feel is a racial slur. While the name and mascot may seem odd, it goes back generations, thanks to the date industry (I mean the fruit, folks). That desert area represents the largest date-growing region in the world outside of the Middle East, from which date palm trees were imported long ago. Every year, there’s the National Date Festival (a.k.a. the Riverside County Fair), which features a parade including young women wearing fetching Arabian Nights harem costumes. It’s all part of the region’s culture. BTW, the Arabs’ big rivals down the street are the Rajahs of Indio High School. Farther up the Coachella Valley, the Palm Springs High School teams are called the Indians. Even the late longtime chairman of the local tribal council didn’t have a problem with that. But there are other institutions with similarly named teams that have chosen to change names and mascots to preserve feelings.

I’d like to scream, STOP IT, but the comeback is going to be that I’m white and of course I don’t have a problem. No, I don’t. But being partly of Irish descent, I certainly would have had one if I’d lived a couple hundred years ago in the United States, when the Irish weren’t treated all that much better than black slaves. BTW, when it comes to sports teams,  a friend tells me that JFK High School in La Palma, California, has a leprechaun for a mascot.

What’s the solution to all this? I don’t have one, except, isn’t there an “unreasonable” or “overboard” light hat goes on in most of our heads? I’m surprised PETA hasn’t objected to the use of animals. Or maybe they have, don’t know.

Some high schools have a sense of humor. At Key West High in Florida, the teams are known as the Fighting Conchs. That’s a shelled sea creature, for you landlubbers out there.

Don’t worry, if your own ethnic group or country of origin hasn’t been slammed yet, the spotlight just hasn’t fallen on you – your turn will come. But when will we embrace each others’ differences instead of trashing them, or conversely, beating others over the head with the misrepresentation of our own marks of distinction? Do we really have this much time on our hands?