Because the mascot was originally a jab at the northern university. They were “rebelling” against the university. Has nothing to do with the confederacy.

Then someone thought the guy was a little too confederate looking anyways and they replaced him with the Yosemite Sam looking dude.

The problem is systemic racism is a real thing, and white Americans doesn’t know how to handle fixing the problem. So they do a bunch of name changing and logo changes and hope it makes people go back to buying shit mindlessly.

Did anyone ask for this? Did anyone complain about the statue? Not likely.

But hey it sure beats doing something real about race relations.