Insanity - Having a "mean" looking Arab team mascot is racist

Idiot Alert!

• The Race Card!  A California high school is called racist for having a "mean" looking Arab as their sports mascot. 
• I guess depicting pride, strength and power in schools is old fashioned.  Much better for the students to be taught that weakness and cowering in fear of political corrected lawsuits is the way to live your life.

The pretend "civil rights" group, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, accused a Coachella Valley High School of stereotyping and demanded a name change.

The group also is seeking a change of the school mascot.

 

The group said it was "shocked to learn that the Arab" is the official mascot of the high school in Thermal.

 

 

"Continued use of the 'Arab' mascot perpetuates demeaning stereotypes of Arabs and Arab Americans," it said. "Coachella Valley High School's gross stereotyping cannot be tolerated," reports CNN News.

 

The school has a mascot that "depicts a man with a large nose, heavy beard, and wearing" a traditional head covering, the group said.

 

During halftime, "a female dressed as belly dancer entertains the mascot by dancing for him," it added.

 

But for the school, the mascot and cheerleaders shouting "Let's go, Arabs, let's go" are nothing new. The mascot dates back to the 1930s.

The Arab mascot recognizes the influences of the Middle East in the area's date farming, said Rich Ramirez, president of the Coachella Valley High School Alumni Association and a 1959 graduate of the high school.

 

In the early 1900s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture acquired date shoots from Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries and used them to establish date orchards in the valley's desert climate, Ramirez said.

 

Some of the valley's Arab-Americans -- largely of Lebanese background -- were involved in date farming, but they mostly ran men's apparel stores and groceries, Ramirez said.

 

Fucked no matter what you do.
Even when you try to honor a group the insane liberal fringe so-called "civil rights" groups crap on you and call you an evil racist.
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Middle Eastern influences are reflected in community names of Mecca, Oasis and Arabia. The city of Coachella has street names of Damascus and Baghdad, and the valley's largest city, Indio, has a street named Deglet Noor, a date variety.

 

 

 

By 1921, the valley held its first date festival in Indio, and people who dressed in Arabian style were admitted free to the festival, he said. The Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival now attracts 300,000 people over 10 days every February, said Ramirez, a former board member of the Coachella Valley History Museum.

Middle Eastern influences are also reflected in community names of Mecca, Oasis and Arabia. The city of Coachella has street names of Damascus and Baghdad, and the valley's largest city, Indio, has a street named Deglet Noor, a date variety, Ramirez said.

 

By 1931, the high school adopted the mascot name of Arabs, replacing the informal names of "date pickers" or "farmers" inspired by the area's industry. It was a common way of nicknaming communities then, much like the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers, Ramirez said.

 

"We're proud of Arab tradition and Arab culture," Ramirez said.

 

The high school band and drill team dresses in Arab style, and a girl in a genie costume dances during football halftimes, Ramirez said.

Honoring Arab Culture & Food
Left: Indio Scenic Guide Map, circa 1975. Middle: Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival Premium List, 1953. Right: Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival Pamphlet, 1950. | Courtesy of the California History Room, California State Library, Sacramento, California.

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See more at KCET.org - Coachella Valley.



"Arab Marching Band" from the Coachella Valley
Union High School Yearbook, 1953.