In the last few weeks my university has considered changing our mascot—“Hey Reb!”—to something less offensive. “Hey Reb!” is a modified version of an older mascot that was pretty clearly a Confederate soldier. Now his defining characteristic is an impossibly large handlebar moustache—but there are certainly some vestiges of the Confederacy left in him. I grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire, and we had season tickets to Dartmouth hockey games around the time that the team morphed from the “Indians” into the “Big Green.” My father, who had a pretty conservative outlook on the world, found the irony delicious when, a few years later, we lost the national semifinals to the North Dakota “Fighting Sioux.” (North Dakota became the “Fighting Hawks” in 2012).
I’m a bit more progressive than my Dad, and I’m generally on board with the effort to bring our mascots up to speed with modern sensibilities. They are, after all, mascots. I’m less sure, however, about more recent demands to rename buildings and institutions that honor individual people. Yale’s John C. Calhoun College and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs are probably the most prominent focal points in this controversy. I have to admit, I always found it a little strange that Yale decided to name a college after the South Carolina statesman who mounted such a vigorous defense of slavery and slave culture—but I’m not sure that means I’m down with the movement to change the name. I’m even less sure about Woodrow Wilson.
When I was in college I had a friend who used to say that one of the surest signs your country is in trouble is when your leader starts making public appearances in military uniform. Military hats were even worse, according to this guy, and the bigger the hat, the bigger the trouble. I’ve recently wondered what it means if your leader starts making appearances shirtless—but that’s another topic. I’ve often thought the same sort of thing about countries that start renaming famous landmarks or institutions. It smacks a little bit too much of revisionist history for my liking.
I tend to think it is worth being reminded that, not that long ago, Calhoun (who was, to be fair, an alumnus that served as the nation’s Vice President) was one of just a few Yale “worthies” immortalized in statue. The college now bears a plaque recounting his role in secession and the defense of slavery, and those who read it are made to confront the fact that, less than a century ago someone could be both a virulent racist and slave owner and be considered “an eminent Yale man.” There’s something valuable, I think, in keeping that historical reality in public view. Many of the same sorts of things could be said about Woodrow Wilson—he was undoubtedly a racist, and a pretty good case can be made for his general incompetence as a statesman.
Randy Newman once said of Lester Maddox, “He may be a fool, but he’s our fool.” (Trump, anyone?) I think the lesson applies here, too. I understand the idea that we might consolidate a change in our social values by getting rid of tributes to people and ideas that we no longer find admirable… but saying that we don’t believe in something now doesn’t change the fact that we once did—and that fact itself might be worth remembering.
Posted by Ian Bartrum on December 15, 2015 at 07:49 PM
Comments
I think, especially in the context of Princeton, the difference between Calhoun and Wilson is notable.
Posted by: Joe | Dec 22, 2015 1:49:45 PM
Well, much of Calhoun’s political career was built upon his advocacy for slavery. He was also a leading theorist of the ideas that were trotted out to justify the secession of the South. Basically his whole career was as a defender of southern slaveholding aristocrats. Contra Derek, it would seem to me that honoring his achievements as a statesman is equivalent to honoring his achievements as a racist.
(Wilson is a much harder case)
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Dec 22, 2015 12:24:09 PM
It’s worth noting that the Indian mascot wasn’t actually replaced with another mascot at Dartmouth. The “Big Green” is a nickname, and it predates the Indian mascot (or nickname, for that matter). Since the mascot was dropped, Dartmouth, like Harvard, has been without an accepted mascot.
Posted by: Rebelle | Dec 22, 2015 12:09:24 PM
I’d venture to guess that neither of these buildings were so named to honor either man’s accomplishments in the field of racism.
Posted by: Derek Tokaz | Dec 15, 2015 11:26:27 PM