It’s pretty easy to see the truth behind the adage about having too much of a good thing. Eat too much good food and you risk getting diabetes, heart disease or any number of obesity-related health problems. Sleep too much and you fail class by the simple fact that sleeping through your exams is a bad thing. And we all know what happens if you drink too much.

Similarly, there is the problem of too much political correctness in public discourse, and it hurts any effort to actually combat stereotypes. Yes, we want to be polite, respectful and decent when we say things to a recorder or write something for public consumption. Yet focusing on being politically correct sometimes detracts from trying to address the events and history that inspired the need for politically correct language.

Consider the angry responses in the Nov. 3 Technician to the cartoon before the football game against Florida State: the letters mentioned the symbolism behind the imagery in the cartoon of Mr. Wuf kicking the Florida State mascot — a Seminole.

For starters, we sadly lost the game, so the image is moot (and wolves do not kick people — wolves bite people). But to argue this cartoon represents any sort of attempt to create a negative stereotype is a bizarre stretch of reality. By no means am I saying I think the argument is invalid — it is simply a step backwards instead of forward.

We do little to fight stereotypes by attempting to eradicate any negative symbols connected with those associated with common misconceptions. We’re not going to erase the greed of American expansion and the gross mistreatment of American Indians in years following the illicit seizure of their lands by calling a cartoon wolf kicking an opposing team’s mascot something that “propagates the continual degradation of groups.” We will not erase centuries of slavery, decades of segregation and the continuing wage and inequality gap for black people by constantly arguing over who can use the n-word.

We erase stereotypes with substantive actions to improve educational and socioeconomic equality, thus providing those who are likely to cling to such stereotypes a wider lens through which to view society. We combat the degradation of any group by letting our current deeds atone for the past words we used in ignorance or misunderstanding.

But when we build mountains out of molehills with a cartoon about an athletic event, we do little to convince those who embrace negative stereotypes about the correctness of language and the historical connotations behind negative images. And the last thing on most sports fans’ minds is political correctness and the power of stereotypical images. I can tell you what I usually think of as a sports fan: if my team doesn’t win, I will yell loud obscenities and other politically incorrect statements at the other team (or my team, if they managed to screw up), go home, have a few beers and hope to win the next game.

And of course, let us consider the obvious: as Sigmund Freud once said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Likewise, sometimes a cartoon is just a visual way of saying “let’s go team.”