This is out of control! Ignorance and mob rule are both at play here in the case of the mascot for USC named ‘Traveler’. The USC Trojans have had the horse mascot for 56 years but it all could be changing because of a black student group that’s out to purge anything that is even remotely connected to the Confederacy.

ALWAYS THE VICTIM

During a rally earlier this week to show solidarity in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., a USC campus group linked the name to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, whose favorite horse was Traveller. Similarities in the names plus a mention in an obituary many years before that the name is connected to Robert E. Lee’s horse have caused a stir within the perpetually offended black student group:

The earliest mention of a connection between Lee and USC’s Traveler appears to have come in Saukko’s four-paragraph obituary in The Times.

“Saukko’s first horse was half Arabian, half Tennessee walker and was named Traveler I, after the horse of Civil War general Robert E. Lee.”

BLACK STUDENT ASSEMBLY OFFENDED

At the rally, according to the student newspaper the Daily Trojan, Saphia Jackson, co-director of the USC Black Student Assembly, asked students not to be quiet, and reminded that “white supremacy hits close to home” and referenced the name of the Trojans mascot.

Questions about the name’s provenance have increased on social media in the midst of the national discussion on race.

“UNEASE LINGERS”

Unease lingers in some quarters over Traveler’s name and what it might represent today.

WOW! THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF RIDICULOUS

The widow of the past owner of Traveler put it best when she said:

“Over at USC they’re nonpolitical about their horse,” Pat Saukko DeBernardi said. “What if their name would be Lee? Would they want to change it? It doesn’t make any difference. . . . He’s a wonderful horse and a great mascot.”

Read more: LA Times