The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A new name needed
Sorry, Chuck: Time for WestConn to drop Colonial mascot
Ethan Chan started a petition to change the Western Connecticut State University mascot and got more than 300 names.
Victoria Santiago started a petition to change it from Colonials to Whales and got more than 300 names, too.
There already had been discussion on the Danbury campus.
Yet when school president John B. Clark sent out a statement June 4 that the university will start a student-driven process led by the Student Government Association and Speak Truth to Power to find a new mascot that better represents today’s WestConn — where racism and hatred have no home — all hell broke loose in the school’s Facebook comments section.
Between the initial post and one asking for civility, there have been more than 600 comments careening both ways. A handful of alumni asserted they would no longer give financial support.
Not surprisingly, in the climate today, words like snowflake, soft, virtue signaling, Karen, gaslight and bye Felicia were splashed throughout. I hate those words. They’re social media shorthand for “I’ve got my agenda. Now get lost.”
First off, this is not an “if.” WestConn director of university and community relations Paul Steinmetz said a name and mascot change are definitely going to happen. I agree with the decision. Colonials sends out conflicting signals and this is no time in American history to be uncertain about racism and equality. And the students surely can produce a cooler nickname and a mascot better than the terrifying-looking Chuck. Dude is creepy.
“They’ll report their choice,” Steinmetz said, “which I’m sure will be
adopted.”
A nickname like Colonials really does need some examination and understanding. This isn’t as easy as Redskins or Indians. George Washington University, for example, has been debating the elimination of Colonials for a few years.
If you look at Colonials and envision the people from the 13 colonies rising up against the British in the 18th century, taking up militia arms and bringing independence to our nation, you’re going to like what you see.
Those Colonials aren’t imperialists. They’re revolutionaries. They’re patriots. Two potential nicknames the school should have looked at when it changed the nickname from Indians in the 1970s.
If you add in the Battle of Ridgefield, there’s even a built-in heroine in 16-yearold Sybil Ludington, who — a la Paul Revere — rode 40 miles throughout the night in 1777 warning 400 militiamen under her dad’s command, “The British are burning Danbury!”
So maybe Sybil, not Chuck, should have been WestConn’s mascot. She had all sorts of moxie.
Yet if you look at Colonials and see colonialism with certain countries dominating other peoples, asserting economic control, imposing their religion, and killing, you are going to hate what you see. European powers held 84 percent of the world’s land in 1914.
“The dual perspective probably has caused (Colonials) to last as long as it has and also caused us to make a move at this point in history,” Steinmetz said.
Chan, a musical theater major and rising sophomore from Queens, N.Y., and Santiago, a musical theater major and rising sophomore from Newington, have their own perspective.
“Since I’ve been at WestConn, the mascot hasn’t set well with me,” Chan said. “With the students of color I’ve spoken to, there has been a little bit of unrest because of what we feel the Colonials signifies. What really initiated my petition was right after the death of George Floyd, a lot of universities around the country were releasing statements and giving resources to students who might want to use them.
“WestConn, on the official Instagram, followed the Blackout Tuesday trend, posted the black square and nothing else. On Facebook, they released a very lackluster statement not acknowledging Black Lives Matter. We got an email university-wide from the president not acknowledging Black Lives Matter. Any school that in its mission statement says it stands for all its students — at that point I had enough.”
Chan said if he could initiate any kind of institutional change it would be a steppingstone to acknowledge what else it needs to do.
“I thought the mascot was a good place to start,” Chan said.
It should be pointed out that a march in support of Black Lives Matter was held last week on campus and, there, Clarke called for the death of racism and for permanent change.
“Changing the name does not mean that the institution thinks everything Colonials, the first Connecticut residents stood for, is bad,” Steinmetz said. “They did good things that are the basis of American values and traditions. As the student body has changed, one very different from the 1970s, you start having more discussions what other things Colonials stood for and have a broader perspective.
“How did slavery come about 400 years ago and how were the original settlers complicit in it? One of our faculty members brought up (the topic of America’s own colonialism) in the University Senate. Western Connecticut is built on land where Native Americans once lived and was taken from them.”
Santiago, who is of Puerto Rican descent, attended Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. She said the diversity there fostered friendships and participation in the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Times have changed,” Santiago said. “In talking with Ethan and others even before (the death of ) George Floyd, students felt Colonials wasn’t representing the times. To me and a lot of people I’ve talked to, it represents white, male privilege. That it represents inequality. You go to games, you see a white, male mascot.”
Chan’s mom immigrated from China when she was young and grew up in Manhattan’s Chinatown. His dad came from Hong Kong when he was in his late teens.
“I think I understand the adverse effects of colonialism,” Chan said. “People think it’s heritage. It can’t be your heritage to go to places and take things that aren’t yours. When I think about American colonialism specifically, I think about Manifest Destiny, how as a country we decided we are superior and entitled to other people’s land. I feel that’s ingrained in our history.
“People say colonizers who killed off Native Americans and brought slaves to the United States were Europeans. While that may be true, we engaged in the slave trade until the 1860s, and after Andrew Jackson became president we engaged in the Trail of Tears that killed off vast numbers of Native Americans. Even after the 1900s, we occupied the Philippines after we liberated it from Spain.”
Western Connecticut has changed nicknames, colors, logos. Chuck has been around fewer than 20 years. The school has wrestled with the best way to identify itself. I’m an alliteration guy.
Go, WestConn Whales. WestConn Warthogs. WestConn Wildebeest, Wolves or Woodpeckers. If somebody has an eye-poppin’ wild one like Yard Goats or Flying Squirrels, go without alliteration. Although the students did have a vote in the mid-1970s, Steinmetz said a check of the archives showed Warthogs won with 13 votes in limited balloting. The way he understands it, the SGA discussed it with the athletic department and administration and they agreed on Colonials. Remember, this was the time of the 200th anniversary of the nation.
“I started looking and came up with Whales because I think it’s something very appropriate for now,” Santiago said. “Whales are associated with compassion and solitude and knowledge of both life and death. Also, unbridled creativity. The exhalation of the blowhole symbolizes the freeing of one’s creative energy. Sound is a creative force of life.”
As a less creative sportswriter, I’d point out it’s also the state animal and the biggest, most powerful creature in the world.
There was some concern voiced on Facebook about the cost of a change. Chan said in discussing with the SGA less than 30 percent of WestConn merchandise has Colonials on it, and only a few places have the mascot on it. One is the middle of the football field. Chuck is not on any uniforms, Steinmetz said, and the football team was outfitted without “Colonials.”
“Being on the side of the American revolutionaries is a very understandable stance,” said Chan, who doesn’t have a preference for a new nickname. “But in denouncing British colonialism and removing them from the 13 colonies, we can also look at what the U.S. had done to indigenous people. You could even call it hypocritical in removing the British as tyrants and then tyrannizing the people who lived here.”
“It doesn’t have to be Whales,” Santiago said. “The fact that it got changed makes me happy. Students came together to achieve this.”
Sorry, Chuck.