Michael Ventre

I have a long-standing policy, which has served me well over the years:

I try not to tell someone that they shouldn’t be offended.

If you’re offended, you’re offended. That’s the result of your own sensibilities, your own cultural, social, racial and ethnic filters. It’s preposterous for me to tell somebody that they’re overreacting to a perceived insult, and to get over it.

I just know this: Each person chooses to be offended.

I happen to be an Italian American. My favorite movie is “The Godfather” and I love “Goodfellas” and “The Sopranos” as well. I recognize that the characters and storylines in those productions represent a tiny, albeit well-chronicled and somewhat romanticized, criminal element within the Italian-American population. I feel that if someone out there watches “The Godfather” and comes to the conclusion that all Italians are in the mafia, then that person is an idiot and I don’t care what they think anyway.

In those aforementioned cases and others like them, I choose not to be offended.

Because I am not a Native American, I feel much less comfortable telling someone in that segment of society not to be offended by mascots and nicknames in sports. In fact, I don’t feel comfortable about it at all.

All I can do is explain how they make me feel, and my reaction to the NCAA’s recent order banning those images from postseason tournaments.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with most of them, simply because I believe teams give themselves nicknames to honor a particular segment of society, not to demean it. Braves, Indians, Seminoles, even Warriors, are groups of individuals who represent a fighting spirit, determination, perseverance, strength and courage.

That’s why schools and pro teams call themselves those names. That’s why they don’t call themselves the “Sniveling Wimps” or the “Thieving Rats.” You want a team nickname you can be proud of, and I believe most Americans — whether they have Native American blood or not — look at the people who populated this country before the white man came along and stole it out from under them and associate them with pride, honor, dignity and bravery.

Many Native Americans still would not approve, and again, I can’t argue. It isn’t my culture. But I believe I am not alone in assigning a host of positive reactions to those nicknames, as evidenced by the many schools and teams that still have them today in the year 2005, and the ones — like Florida State — that were outraged and insulted by the NCAA’s recent decision because it assumes those institutions are insensitively doing damage rather than showing respect.

I could probably do without a handful of the mascots, not because their presence alone in Native American garb is “hostile” or “abusive,” to use the NCAA’s language, but more because some of them are over the top and therefore border on caricature.