Weighing in on Cultural Suicide

 In response to Indiana Valparaiso University interim-President Collette Irwin-Knott's decision to scrap the 'offensive' school mascot image of a Christian Knight, the following email was sent to her.  

Dear Interim-President Irwin-Knott --

     I read with sadness of your recent decision to replace your institution's honorable logo of a Christian Knight with something 'less offensive.'  As a history major who graduated from the 'Golden Knights' of Catholic-owned Gannon University in Erie, Pa and later as a history teacher at the "Red Knights" high school in North Ft Myers, FL, I have always taken great pride in the mascots and logos of my alma maters. I can't understand your logic in undertaking such a move to remove the image of a "knight" from your own institution and from your student body.

   First, I wonder if you had the approval of alumni before attempting this 'woke' reform. If not, madame president, may I suggest that authoritarian measures such as this are reminiscent of the acts of many dictators who thought they knew best for their subjects?

   Second, I wonder if you clearly understand the history behind the Crusades--which were defensive in nature. The Knights Templar and the other orders of Knights took vows of poverty and chastity, of protecting the weak, the infirm, and obviously, the Christian pilgrims who were being ruthlessly raped and pillaged throughout the Eastern Roman Empire and the Holy Land at the time. Will you ask Muslims to remove the scimitar from their national flags in return for their use of such when desecrating of our Western Heritage and civilization? In your statement, you defend your actions by arguing that the "Knights of the KKK" at one time used this same symbol for their hateful organization. So what? Are we to tear down every icon of our civilization because some small group of individuals (what is the number of current KKK members today that you should fear their rare use of this mascot?) embrace a popular symbol of our culture? Why not vow never to do business with General Motors or IBM because they at one time did business with the Nazis? Let's rename Harvard because its founder was tied to the slave trade. Let's rename our national capital? Where will it all end? Better to deny Black Lives Matter flags and T-Shirts on your campus (something you personally would not have the courage to do!) because that organization is based upon Marxism, racial hatred and the destruction of western civilization and the nuclear family!!

   Through your action, you demonstrate an amazing ignorance of past history, of bias and arrogance, and of self-deprecation and self-hatred that is all too common in academia today. Purging such an uplifting and noble logo from your student body is embarrassing and will do damage to their character. Better they have a dolphin, wolf or perhaps a squirrel or rabbit to emulate, eh? 

   At the height of madness on college campuses in the late 1960s, San Francisco University President Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa stood--in quite similar fashion to your mascot--as the bulwark of common sense and decorum. 

   I only wish you had the ideals, dedication, conviction and courage of your now purged and abused mascot or that past university president!  

   Shame on you! Shame on your willful collusion in the desecration of our culture and our history.  

Jack Bovee

Fort Myers, FL