FROM THE EDITOR: Senator Reid and my racist UNLV tattoo

I have been a lifelong fan of UNLV sports, more specifically the Runnin’ Rebels basketball team.

Born in Las Vegas but raised in Tennessee, my passion for the program from 2,000 miles away was always strong.

Eventually I made my way back to Sin City, eventually enrolled at UNLV and graduated in 2006. One of my graduation gifts to myself, and my first tattoo, was the Hey Reb mascot inked onto my upper left arm. For nine years it brought me happiness, showing it off whenever the opportunity arose.

But last week, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid pointed out it’s racist.

In case you missed the story about Reid’s call for Nevada to reconsider UNLV’s nickname and mascot Hey Reb in the wake of the terrible mass shooting in South Carolina, here is the first paragraph from a story posted June 23 by the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

“Amid new concerns over symbols of the Confederacy, Sen. Harry Reid on Tuesday said Nevada should reconsider the ‘Rebels’ nickname for UNLV, a carryover from the days the school more closely identified itself with the South.”

Are you kidding me, good senator?

The article continued, “Reid said the Nevada Board of Regents ‘should take that up and take a look at it. It’s up to the Board of Regents and I believe they should take a look at it.’”

Afterward, Reid spokesman Kristen Orthman confirmed that Reid was “calling for action” on the nickname for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The article goes on to discuss UNLV’s history with the name Rebels, the mascot and its origins in 1957. And sure, there was a previous mascot, (Beauregard was a wolf in a Confederate outfit), that was, admittedly, racist. And the UNLV football team had a helmet that had the Confederate flag inside a football for one season. That was not good, either. But that was decades ago.

But for Reid to leverage the tragedy in South Carolina for this is just, well, disappointing.

Fortunately, yet-to-announce but likely future candidate for Reid’s soon-to-be-vacant senate seat U.S. Rep. Joe Heck jumped in and took Reid to task for this nonsense.

“While UNLV’s original mascot caused controversy, Hey Reb has been the mascot since 1983 and has no relation to the Civil War, the Confederacy, or slavery” Heck said in a statement. “As the school states on its website, he was created to depict an independent mountain man and to embody Rebel spirit at athletic events and student and alumni activities.”

Heck also said Reid should be less concerned with renaming sports teams (a dig at this nonsense and the senator’s continued campaign against the Redskins name for the Washington football team), and “more concerned with passing the National Defense Authorization and Appropriation bills.”

I agree the Confederate flag should be taken down from state buildings and off license plates. But this is almost like Reid looked across the political landscape, felt left out of the discussion, and tried to find something, anything, in his home state.

Another point that needs to be made is that UNLV is one of the most diverse campuses in the country, with 51 percent of undergraduates registering as a racial or ethnic minority.

I do not think Confederate war memorials should be removed. That is a knee-jerk reaction to a horrible tragedy.

Another crazy development came when the TV Land cable network announced Wednesday the removal of reruns of “The Dukes of Hazzard” because the “General Lee” is emblazoned with the Confederate flag. According to various news outlets, the decision to pull the 1979-1985 CBS show came after Warner Brothers decided to stop allowing manufacturers to license products that feature the General Lee.

I just want to laugh, or cry, or both.

I’m not naive. I know racism is alive and impacting many people every day. I went to a small Catholic high school in Knoxville that traveled into the hills with black athletes. I remember vividly hearing adults and children yelling the N-word more than once in the early 1980s.

But I still believe Reid and TV Land are overreaching.

I grew up in the South, where they still call the Civil War, “The war of Northern aggression,” and try to frame slavery as not the main cause of the war, stating it was over states’ rights. All that I find offensive.

Also offensive? That we are not talking more about Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Cynthia Hurd, Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., and Myra Thompson.

Arnold M. Knightly is the editor of the Pahrump Valley Times