Posted on April 29, 2019

Cal State Campus Ditching ‘Prospector Pete’ Mascot After Complaints That Gold Rush Hurt Indigenous People

Lukas Mikelionis, Fox News, April 27, 2019

California State University’s campus in Long Beach is ditching its longtime mascot amid accusations of racism and officially moving to pick either a new symbol or have no mascot at all.

The university ditched its “Prospector Pete” character in September after criticism that it was offensive to indigenous people.

The supposedly offensive mascot was born when the campus opened in the 1940s, with founding President Pete Peterson’s comment that he “struck the gold of education” by creating it, according to the Los Angeles Times.

But students have come to see the mascot not as a tribute to their founder or to California history, but rather as a representation of the violence caused to Native Americans and others during California’s Gold Rush era.

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{snip} (Whether the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers should be worried about their nickname is unknown at this point.)

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The university is now asking students to vote on a new mascot, with choices including Pelicans, Sharks, Stingrays, Giraffes, Kraken (a sea monster from Scandanavian folklore), or even picking the option called “the Beach” that is sort of a no-mascot option.

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