Recently, Valparaiso University was forced to change its mascot due to its resemblance to a Klu Klux Klan newspaper. The mascot in question was called The Crusader which is the same name as The Crusader, A KKK newspaper. Now I don’t think I need to explain why being in the news for being even somewhat related to the KKK is a bad thing, But this wasn’t the only reason why Valparaiso University changed it. The crusader, in a historical context, can technically be traced back to a group of people that were not so nice. Forcing Jews and Muslims out of the holy land by force and some other not so great methods. The students expressed their feeling towards the mascot saying it was racist and even made them feel uncomfortable.
I support the change in mascot, but I do have a few questions. Does this mean every single person or group of people that used the name crusader is considered racist? Does the KKK still have this much power? If the facts are that people will change their name if it resembles anything to the KKK, which makes sense, can’t the KKK take down every single mascot ever just by a simple newspaper name change? I only ask because the term crusader is such a big name used in today’s world, from sports teams, usernames, to probably a couple thousand dogs. It would be like finding out they changed the newspaper name to “Shadow” and now every 14-year-old Fortnite player is racist because they have “shadow” in their username. gamer is considered racist. I mean those KKK robes do cast a shadow sooooo. Is everyone who has a sports team or username with the term crusader in it a racist? Why are we allowing them to have this much power?
This newspaper has already had some controversy over the years. Back in 2016, The Crusader (newspaper) said that they supported Trump and wanted to “make America great again”. Now, I’m sure some hardcore liberals will disagree with me here, but Donald Trump’s “make America great again” is severely different from the fucking KKK’s “make America great again”. Trump saw that and even he was like “fuuuuck that shit”.
So my point is, how can we stop the KKK from somehow still contributing to society? Let me know in the comments.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/12/us/valparaiso-university-mascot-trnd/index.html
