by
John Stevenson
My
August 9 column discussed the renaming, removal, or downright destruction of
symbols of the Confederate States of America and, by extension, “white
supremacy.” These actions had been
sporadic and seemingly unconnected with each other until the June 2015 South
Carolina church massacre by a white supremacist. That terrible shooting galvanized public
opinion, and the previously sporadic efforts became a nationwide movement to
erase all traces of the Confederacy.
I
described the primary target for historical erasure as being the Confederate
leaders and generals, most notably General Robert E. Lee---who was typically
depicted astride his horse, Traveller.
And although Traveller probably took no position on slavery or on
secession, just as Lee’s statues are taken down so are Traveller’s.
Then
I took the liberty of posing a fanciful extrapolation of the history-scrubbing
movement. I theorized that, once
statues of Lee and Traveller had been removed from every public place in
America, the movement would discover another Traveler worthy of their
attention.
The
University of Southern California’s mascot Traveler is a white horse with a
rider in faux Trojan get-up. I believe
USC’s Traveler is named after Lee’s Traveller, but there are folks on both
sides of that question. Nevertheless, I warned
that, once the statues were all gone, the streets, cities, and schools all
renamed, the history scrubbers would demand that USC’s Traveler undergo a name
change. I did this in an effort to point
out the absurdity of the purification movement, which knows no limits.
Well,
what a difference three days makes. I
had of course failed to foresee the Nazis/KKK versus Antifa/BLM confrontation, slugfest,
mayhem, and murder in Charlottesville on August 12. This event had a profound effect on the
movement, since the Nazi/KKK element had announced that their presence was to
protest the planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.
This
show of hate-group support for Confederate monuments gave the history-scrubbing
movement an adrenalin rush which greatly accelerated their enthusiasm for
destroying all things Confederate. Some
statues were assaulted and pulled down by movement vandals, while others were
removed and relocated in the dead of night by local authorities. The result of Charlottesville is that all
Confederate symbols are now on the endangered species list.
Which
brings us back to USC’s horse, Traveler.
My somewhat tongue-in-cheek August 9 column predicted that Traveler (or
at least his name) would be in danger---but I thought this would be in the
future, when the statues had been eradicated and the history erasers sought new
targets. My mistake.
According
to the USC website “The Black
Student Assembly is the official umbrella organization and funding board that
oversees recognized African-American student organizations at USC.” (About three dozen such organizations are
listed as being under that umbrella.)
Well, during the
week following the Charlottesville tragedy, that Black Student Assembly held a
protest rally in front of the Tommy Trojan statue on the USC campus. According to the Daily Trojan, “Saphia Jackson, co-director of the USC Black Student
Assembly, opened the rally encouraging students not to remain silent, and
reminding those in attendance that white supremacy hits close to home,
referring to the presence of Traveler, USC’s mascot…” But “BSA co-directors Saphia Jackson and
Ariana Seymore declined to comment on...(whether)…they would seek to remove
Traveler’s statue from the campus.” Nevertheless, that door appears to have now
been opened.
As you read
this, the Trojans are just a couple of days from playing their 2017 home
opener. Will Traveler take the field
with the Trojans, as he and his forefathers have done each season since
1961? Will he be required to gallop incognito---or
under an assumed name? Or will he simply
be replaced by a non-white horse? And,
if Traveler is still on the Trojans’ roster, will he survive the season without
being cut?
What started out
in my imagination as an absurdity has come true. See? I
told you so.
