Jackson Sundown needed no help from pearl-clutching outrage queens.
Whoooo boy! That hat sure do trigger some folks!
In early April, Ellen Currano got an email from the University of Wyoming’s marketing department asking if she’d appear in a promotional video for a newly proposed marketing campaign. She was surprised, then angry. It wasn’t the idea of being in a promotional video that Currano objected to, but the slogan on which the entire campaign hinges: “The world needs more cowboys.”
“Honestly, I thought it was a joke at first,” said Currano, an associate professor in the department of geology and geophysics. “I thought it was a joke. And then I looked it up on the university web page and saw that no, this was, in fact, serious.”
The horror. The horror.
The university is working a “purposefully inclusive campaign that seeks to dismantle the traditional image of a cowboy and that plays on the university’s mascot. (The university calls its male sports teams the Cowboys, and its female teams the Cowgirls.) In prospective campaign materials, the slogan is accompanied by images of women and minorities, and messages declaring that cowboys are ‘every sex, shape, color, and creed.’” You’d think this this would be a good thing. You’d be wrong.
Actually, no — you’d be right. But the pearl-clutching outrage queens screech very, very loudly these days, so I’m not too confident that the university will stick to its guns. Wait, that phrase is probably “triggering” too…
Anyway, Frontier Partisans is making a formal offer for a modest consulting fee to fix this problem for everybody. Here you go:
George Fletcher figures the world needs more cowboys.
Rick Schwertfeger says
“‘The slogan has drawn backlash from critics, including faculty members and Native American groups, who call the catchphrase sexist, racist and counterproductive to university recruitment — because it excludes women and people of color,’ Reuters reported.”
Yeah, well, let’s just ignore reality – which was/is: 1. Real cowboys in the 19th century were men of Anglo, Hispanic and Black races/ethnic groups. Recently I read that the majority weren’t Anglo. The great Arnold J. Rojas in his masterpiece “These Were the Vaqueros” about cowboys in the California cattle industry in the 19th century, writes about the majority Californio vaqueros – nearly all of Mexican heritage with all kinds of mixed ancestries of indigenous peoples, Spanish colonials, etc. Rojas also wrote of and even has photos of Anglo California cowboys. Today there are Indigenous cowboys who raise cattle, train horses, and rodeo. And the cowboys of the huge King Ranch in South Texas – Los Kinenos – are all or nearly all Mexican-Americans.
2. Every month “Western Horseman” magazine runs an article on women in the cattle and/or horse industries. Quite a few are cowgirls, who make a point that they ride with the cowboys and do the same work. Many women are horse trainers.
JimC says
Yup.
Matthew says
Considering cowboy is an occupation not an ethnicity, race, or religion, what’s the problem?
Personally, I think these people like being offended.
JimC says
Yup.
Pat_H says
Yes, indeed, nothing like a self declared righteous snit.
Keith West says
Ms. Currano needs to go back to xir safe space.
Black Tyrone says
Should Wyoming cave in to such comical notions, Texas will collect their “cowboy club” membership cards.
JimC says
Exactly. That’s no way for a Cowboy Buddy to act!
Black Tyrone says
This is not the time to be flippant with these types. I spent the better part of 38 years self employed in the insurance claims field. people like this would not last. The confrontation would blow them away like a severe windstorm. These poor souls will not hold a job in the real world and I dare say will be shocked at life’s realities. Good grief!
Dave Allen says
Looked up Ellen Curran’s University of Wyoming webpage, BS from university of Chicago 2003 and a PHD from Penn State 2008. Paleobotany! she came from back east to Wyoming for the fossils! Another ultra liberal millennial sitting around waiting to be outraged at the drop of a cowboy hat!
JimC says
Seeing a lot of that “move here because we love it, now let’s change it” outlook here in Sisters, too.
J.F. Bell says
(Forgive me. My sense of diplomacy went on vacation a few weeks back. I do not expect a return for some time)
Per a disconcerting number of new arrivals, Texas would be a fine state were it not filled with those terrible, backwards, knuckle-dragging Texans.
Admittedly we don’t have it as bad as Florida. Still, if the legends can be believed, once upon a time we had the rednecks over here and the hippies over there, and provided they all had their breathing room we did alright. We don’t have that anymore. We’ve got the pushy left arriving daily to relieved us of our poor benighted culture and to fight this we’ve got the worst caricatures of anything remotely Southern, Southwestern, cowboy, or redneck carried to their illogical extreme. Some days it’s a reality-TV nightmare.
I’m hoping sooner or later the transplants realize that culture they’re fighting is backed up by hundreds of miles of dry, dusty bullheadedness. That their only chance at winning is staying and eating chicken-fried steak for a thousand years. Maybe then, once they’ve gone, we can shove the shitkicker genie back in the idiot-bottle.
Until then, flip ’em the bird and let ’em all eat horseshit. I don’t need purple-haired cross-gendered whats-its screaming about privilege any more than I need the jackhole in thousand-dollar boots and a ten-gallon hat taking up six parking spots because God forbid he drive anything with less displacement than a WWII PT boat.
Or maybe we’ll get that zombie plague. At this juncture I’m pretty much okay with either.
john roberts says
Shouldn’t there be outrage at grown men being called “boys”? At least one ethnic group really resented that.
Wayne says
As a former student at Texas A&M I’m glad female students there are called “aggies” just like male students, rather than “aggettes.” “Cowboy” is also universal in my book.
Another fabulous cowboy source is the late Jo Mora’s “Trail Dust and Saddle Leather” in which he gave all due credit to the vaqueros who invented cowboying and mentions some barefoot black cowboys who could rope with the best of them. If you google him and find his artwork familiar, it might be because the unforgettable cover art for the Byrd’s “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” was drawn from one of his posters. Look him up pardner.
JimC says
Mora’s art really trips my trigger.
lane batot says
….and she should read the incredible adventure book written by Stan Brock(of vintage “Wild Kingdom” fame, and the REAL DEAL Frontier Partisan!) of his life on the Dadanawa ranch in South America–the title of this book? “Where All The Cowboys Are Indians”(highly recommended to all you fellers, too)…..
Eccentric Cowboy says
Ahhhhhh ha ha ha! I read about this one too. I find this stuff outrageously funny, profound ignorance aside. The whole cowboy concept has appealed to the world over and represents this entire half of the planet. Cowboys, vaqueros, gauchos, etc, different names, same occupation. The same sense of independence, grit and roguish charm that has appealed to the whole world over.
Heh, you’d think though if this person knew even the stereotypes about cowboys, she’d know we don’t back down easy.
Good article as always pard!
JimC says
Good to hear from you EC.
Traven Torsvan says
Honestly I’m really tired of these “campus snowflake” scare article the media puts out on a regular basis. Again and again it usually just boils down to some student organization putting out mildly worded petition or legit grievance that gets blown out of proportion by right wing tabloids, with the end result is the poor students and faculty making complaint or hounded with death threats and dodging and eventually have to drop out or go in hiding. Meanwhile the demagogues who frame themselves as free speech martyrs get endless positive publicity.
JimC says
Well, perhaps the “campus snowflakes” and loudmouthed, attention-seeking asshats like the execrable Randa Jarrar would be best served by not living down to the negative stereotype.
Traven Torsvan says
Had to look up Jarrar, and lol sorry she’s cool, fuck the Bush clan and their mentally challenged brood. It will take decades for the world to recover from damage dubya did and and the last thing to worry about are some “uncivil” words on twitter”
JimC says
So any kind of loathsome Twitter incontinence backed with “fuck you, I’ve got tenure” is “cool” if it’s aimed at people you despise? Good to know.
In March of 2003, I wrote an 800-word editorial opposing the invasion of Iraq, which the publishers ran in the face of an 80-plus percent approval of the war, a small town move for which I will forever salute them. We received threats of loss of business and I received death threats.
None of it was about attention seeking and getting emotional rocks off from the safety of a tenured ivory tower. There’s a difference between making a case and acting out like a puerile adult child and the fact that the academic world increasingly refuses to make the distinction and hold its denizens to a higher standard is pathetic. Nothing “cool” about it at all.
Pat_H says
My take on this whole ridiculous event:
https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-university-of-wyoming-adopts.html
JimC says
This is really well done. Thanks.