Consider the real Quakers

To the Editor: I am a birthright member of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. I am also a Penn employee and sometimes read The Daily Pennsylvanian's coverage of Penn's sports teams, the Quakers. How this can be in an institution that claims to honor diversity and promote tolerance? Penn's Quaker mascot is one who dresses up as a satirical caricature of my ancestors to rally Penn's team to "fight, fight, fight for victory." Surely the Penn community knows that Quakers are pacifists. As our Peace Testimony proclaims, we "utterly deny all outward wars and strife... for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever" This is more than a notion. For 350 years, Quakers have rejected military participation, choosing instead to be conscientious objectors or war resisters in times of conscription. Many Friends today devote their lives to the struggle for social and economic justice which, as Martin Luther King Jr. so rightly observed, is the fundamental pre-condition for peace. So how insulting do you suppose Penn's Quaker mascot is to us? Why not call your teams the "unclean Jews," the "promiscuous Catholics" or the "licentious Muslims?" How would your student body and alumni feel about a grossly exaggerated priest in vestments leading cheers or perhaps a "humorous" caricature of a Jew in a yarmulke, clowning around for the crowd? I'm guessing the many people in the Penn community would object -- loudly -- to seeing their religion so trivialized and ridiculed. Why should I respond any differently? We Quakers aren't numerous in the world, but neither are we extinct. Particularly in Philadelphia, we continue to make our presence as a people of conscience felt in social, political and cultural arenas. Is it too much to ask that Penn treat us with a little respect?

Anna Forbes University Consultant Penn/Veterans Administration Center for the Studies of Addiction

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