USC Bruin Symbol and Racism
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The battle over the tradition of USC students hanging the Bruin before the USC-UCLA football game each year has produced an argument over whether the tradition should continue, and it is an argument that is steeped in issues of political correctness, racial concerns, and adherence to tradition. Over a period of weeks, articles, letters, editorials, and other writings appeared in the campus newspaper at USC offering views on one side or the other of this debate. Indeed, the argument continued a year later, with no clear resolution or settlement of the matter. The side calling for an end to the practice offered the best arguments, though many elements of their position are refutable and are based on doubtful premisses. Those on this side, however, shaped their arguments more clearly and had a stronger idea of what issues to raise, while those on the other side often did little to refute what was wrong with the arguments of their opponents and relied too heavily on tradition as an argument. The discussion was started by opponents, who called for an end to the lynching and burning of the Bruin bear because of the similarity between this action and the earlier practice in the deep South of lynching blacks. The argument was that the reader would surely be able to see how this tradition was hurtful to black students and generated anger and disgust. The writers point to the event and find a different symbolic value in it than is intended by those participating. It should be
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nching. The argument he offers for the event has several parts: 1) this is a matter of tradition; 2) it occurs prior to the most important school event of the year; 3) the crosstown rivalry is important to students who care nothing about sports; 4) hating the opposition is part of the rivalry and part of the tradition; and 5) the hate generated is healthy hate directed at a specific end--winning the football game.
Rhetors supporting changing the tradition continued stating as their primary reason that it offended black students. They also argued that traditions should not be kept just because they are traditions and that from time to time traditions need to be re-examined and reshaped in the light of new conditions and new attitudes. This is a good argument for those claiming only that a tradition should be upheld because it is a tradition, a point of view that is difficult to defend when it is found that the tradition may be harmful.
Supporters of the practice of burning the Bruin failed as well to develop any coherent argument to counter the moral issues raised by opponents. In addition to calling for simply supporting tradition, some of the supporters tried to defuse the situation by stating that there were more importa
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1372
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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