If you've ever wondered what a political movement tastes like when it sells out, you'll have to go to The Smiling Moose Brew Pub and Grill in Greenly, Colo.
Starting last Friday, the University of Northern Colorado tavern began selling a new microbrew named after an intramural basketball team, "The Fightin' Whites" (called the "Fightin' Whiteys" by many of its founders).
The intramural basketball team is made up of Hispanics, American Indians and whites, and it was created last spring as a protest of a local high school that uses an Indian mascot and calls itself the "Reds."
To emphasize their "protest," The Fightin' Whites created a T-shirt that uses a 1950s caricature of an adult white male sporting the phrase: "Every thang's gonna be all white!"
Shortly after its inception the team made national news. They incurred the wrath of the nation's white populous. Within days there were calls, e-mails and letters from around the country demanding that they, as Anglo-Americans, be allowed to purchase copies of the shirt because they found the name so funny.
The Fightin' Whites, holding strong to their political convictions, quickly obliged and charged $20 per shirt. Soon, the Fightin' Whites were raking in thousands of dollars from their "movement."
Eventually, however, the fervor of injustice subsided, and the nation lost interest — until now.
Last week, the Fightin' Whites made a decision: It's time to stop Indian oppression where it is most prevalent — in local Colorado bars.
To this end, they created the Fightin' Whites Beer, a microbrew that will sport the team's mascot, theme and logo.
While there is no word yet as to the color of the beer, there is word as to why the team decided to sell their logo to the local brewery. "The idea of a Fighting White Wheat beer cracks me up," said one team founder, Solomon Little Owl.
Little Owl's noble statement speaks volumes to the nature of the campaign. It has become a huge joke. Whites throughout the nation never became offended, and no team mascot was "politically corrected."
The truth of the matter is whites don't find Anglo-caricatures offensive any more than they believe that Indian sports mascots accurately represent American Indians. They're simply not that stupid.
According to a Sports Illustrated poll from last year, 83 percent of American Indians believed that "professional teams should not stop using Indian nicknames, mascots and symbols." When asked about high school and college teams, the number was 81 percent.
The poll also found that 75 percent of American Indians don't think the use of these team names and mascots "contributes to discrimination."
While it is obvious that we must be sensitive to the needs of minority groups, there is no need to create an issue where there is none. America already has too many real problems to be creating new ones.
Movements such as the Fightin' Whites need to be careful about turning non-issues into money making ventures in the name of racial justice. Doing so trivializes real racial problems, and that's just not white.
Joshua Billar is a chemical engineering graduate. Reach him at joshua.billar@asu.edu.
