University of Nebraska-Lincoln Removes ‘White Supremacist’ Gesture for Husker Mascot

Another iconic sports mascot is now being altered at the behest a group of aggrieved people. There’s probably a huge and necessary reason for it this time, right?

Right?!

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has officially altered its legendary mascot Herbie Husker so that the character’s iconic OK hand gesture has become a simple “we’re number 1” sign. 

You might find the ubiquitous OK sign to be frightening. If you’re every other sane person on planet earth, you’re probably uttering an exasperated sigh while reading this news, wondering how much further puritanical wokesters will purge our society of anything fun.

The Daily Mail described that the change – first proposed by the University’s athletic department in 2020 – happened so as to avoid the OK sign’s association with white supremacy. Yes, that’s the real bogeyman. The piece provided context saying, “hate groups have come to use the gesture as a sign for white power – three straight fingers make a ‘W’ and the circle formed next to an extended finger make a ‘P.’” 

Nebraska Athletics recently told the Associated Press, “the concern about the hand gesture was brought to our attention by our apparel provider and others, and we decided to move forward with a revised Herbie Husker logo,’ Nebraska Athletics said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The department also declared that, “the revised logo is now the only Herbie Husker mark available to licensees.” Oh thank heavens. We were concerned that people viewing this gravely racist image might be attracted to their ethnic neighbor and try to exploit them.

In truth, though, this seems less convincing than removing Thomas Jefferson statues. Jefferson owned slaves, that’s at least a serious moral stain on the man that we can all acknowledge. Although we can’t remove Jefferson’s legacy as one our greatest founders, it is not enough. The OK sign on the other hand, became a racist symbol because of a literal joke that started on the internet intended to trigger fake news types in this exact way The New York Times admitted as much. 

“Some users of 4chan, began what they called ‘Operation O-KKK,’ to see if they could trick the wider world — and especially liberals and the mainstream media — into believing that the innocuous gesture was actually a clandestine symbol of white power,” the paper reported in 2017.

This worked. Apparently some neo-nazis even fell for it and used it, so that was all enough for the media and now Nebraska-Lincoln’s Athletic department to want it banned. 

The Anti-Defamation League  – the same group that has changed the definition of racism to only include white people as those who can be racist – even said the OK sign caused confusion among people who think it might be racist, and therefore it should be done away with. 

So, on top of being racist the ADL now wants to kill a joke, and our sports people will gladly oblige. You could ask them to delete jokes from their records if that is what they want.