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The University of Florida is ending its “gator bait” cheer at football games and other sports events because of its racial connotations, the school's president announced Thursday in a letter making several other similar changes on campus.
Florida president Kent Fuchs said in a letter to the university's faculty, students, and staff that the cheer has a “horrific historic racist imagery” involving African American people, especially children, being used as bait for alligators.
I realize quite a few folk here despise Snopes, but guess what, even Snopes concedes that there is no verifiable proof that Black babies or little kids were ever used as alligator bait.
Now, it was most certainly true that there were plenty of racist images of Black children and alligators, and this is where there is an association of alligators with Black kids from the past.
However, it is a ridiculous stretch and pandering at this point. Associating the gator bait cheer with 'racism' is just ludicrous and shows how ridiculous things have become. Hell, I bet if you look hard enough, a lot of what people say and do everyday can be considered 'racist.' When is this madness going to end, and why is it just pandering to one specific group? All it does is further create racial animosities.
Lawrence Wright, who famously uttered the phrase, “If you ain’t a Gator, ya Gator bait, baby” after a 1995 win over Florida State at The Swamp, was livid after the announcement that UF will stop using the cheer.
“While I know of no evidence of racism associated with our “Gator Bait” cheer at UF sporting events, there is horrific historic racist imagery associated with the phrase,” Fuchs wrote in a UF statement titled “Another Step Toward Positive Change Against Racism.” “Accordingly University Athletics and the Gator Band will discontinue the use of the cheer.”
Wright, who was planning to launch a line of bobbleheads, shirts and No. 4 jerseys with the phrase he is well known for, said he was most upset that there was no discussion about it.
“The Gator Nation is a culture, too,” said Wright, who is Black. “It’s not about what happened way back in the past. How about our culture?
I realize quite a few folk here despise Snopes, but guess what, even Snopes concedes that there is no verifiable proof that Black babies or little kids were ever used as alligator bait.
And even if that were true, I bet UF fans were using that chant 50 years ago when most of their opponents' teams were all-white. Even today, of course, the Gator Bait chant applies to all the opposing players regardless of their race.
I was expecting this to be a thread about PETA demanding respect for alligators
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