Cartoon farmer Herbie Husker in a red cowboy hat has retired a “hand gesture” deemed racist
Nebraska Cornhuskers’ mascot Herbie Husker has been “revised” after an “apparel provider and others” raised concerns about the cartoon character using an ‘OK’ hand gesture, which has been associated with white supremacy in recent years.
“That hand gesture could, in some circles, represent something that does not represent what Nebraska athletics is about,” Lonna Henrichs, Nebraska’s athletic department’s licensing and branding director, said to Flatwater Free Press.
Herbie Husker, who first came into existence in 1974, has used the gesture for years, but he’ll now make the no. 1 sign, a gesture which itself has been connected to ISIS terrorists in the past.
The decades-old Herbie Husker logo was recently altered to adjust his hand symbol. The “a-OK” sign was changed to "We're #1". Why? The old gesture can also be a symbol for White Power as it displays 3 fingers for W and the circle a P. The BB-version received the same change. #GBR pic.twitter.com/pE3RKrY36O
— College Sports Logos (@college_logos) January 28, 2022
Heinrichs explained that concerns over Husker’s hand gesture was brought up in July 2020, only weeks after the murder of George Floyd, his death kicking off Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
“We just didn’t even want to be associated with portraying anything that somebody might think, you know, that it means white power,” the branding director said.