On rural communities and schools hanging on to Native American mascots

The New York Times reported today from Cambridge, New York, under the headline, "Facing a Ban, a School District Fights to Keep ‘Indian’ Nickname."  The gist of the story is in the subhead: 

Residents in a divided predominantly white town in upstate New York are fighting a state ruling to remove the Native American mascot.

Cambridge, about an hour north of Albany, on the Vermont state line, has a population of  2,152.  The following excerpt focuses on the community members who want to keep the mascot, the Indians--and in particular the divide between them and relative newcomers to the area, as well as those with more formal education who have returned there. 

Many supporters of keeping the mascot have dismissed concerns as political correctness gone amok, a movement spearheaded by a small group of liberals, many of whom have perhaps not lived in town long enough to realize that many nearby districts have similarly themed names, including the Mechanicville Red Raiders, the Averill Park Warriors and the Lake George Warriors.

Duane Honyoust, a Cambridge resident and a member of the Onondaga Nation, said he supported the school district’s use of the nickname and logo as a tribute to Native people and a reminder to students of the importance of local Native history.

Regarding the anti-mascot movement, he said, “Once you take references to Native Americans out of the schools, you’re starting to erase us.”

* * * 

Meetings of the once-obscure school board have been packed with vocal attendees, necessitating larger spaces and, at times, a local police officer assigned to ensure order.

One recent weeknight this month in a school cafeteria, board members sat on folding chairs emblazoned with the Indians mascot. Many of the roughly 75 attendees pointedly wore orange T-shirts and other garments adorned with the Indians logo.

Most of them were vigorously cheered as they spoke in support of keeping the mascot.

An official announced that it would cost over $90,000 in supplies alone to physically change the nickname and logo on the gym floor, hallway signs, the sides of school buses and other places.

One speaker took the lectern and attributed the name opposition to “woke racism.” Another stepped up and said she was sending her children to a school 20 minutes away because “I didn’t want them to have this experience in their education.”

* * *

By last June, the five-member board voted 3-2 to adopt a resolution to retire the nickname and logo. Then came the backlash, a vote to reverse the decision, the successful appeal to state officials, and now an outright culture war.

“It’s mostly outsiders, people who aren’t originally from here, who want to get rid of it,” said Belinda Sawyer, 49, a restaurant manager in town.

A cheerleader when she attended high school in Cambridge, Ms. Sawyer dropped to the restaurant floor one recent evening and began reciting “Indians on the Warpath,” a cheer chanted over a percussive drumming beat on the bleachers. (Her great-grandmother was a Blackfoot Indian, she said.)

Greg Woodcock, a Cambridge resident in support of keeping the name and mascot, estimated in a phone interview that some 85 percent of the district’s residents are supportive.

They will raise the legal fees themselves, if necessary, he said.

Many critics have dismissed the anti-mascot campaign as being spearheaded by recent transplants to Cambridge, said Alex Dery Snider, a Cambridge resident who was a petitioner in the appeal.

“The message is that outsiders are not welcome here,” she said. “I know of people who planned to move here who changed their minds because of this issue. It just felt really unwelcoming to new people. The message has been if you aren’t from here, you don’t belong here.”

For Mr. McMillan, it was only after moving away to college and gaining more diverse friends that he began viewing certain things in a different light. He started seeing the name as an insensitive caricature that perpetuated stereotypes of Native Americans. As a teen, he did the tomahawk chop to cheer on the high school’s football team.

Several Cambridge area residents of Native American heritage support keeping the Indian mascot. And that reminds me of this similar story out of Colorado last fall, "Rural Colorado students sue to block law demanding 26 schools shed their Native American mascots."  The subhead for Sue McMillan's story is, "The plaintiffs, some of whom claim tribal membership, say the Senate Bill 116 seeks to erase cultural references to Native American heritage."  The plaintiffs in this case are from Lamar, population 7,804, and Yuma, population 3,524, both in far eastern Colorado. An excerpt follows: 

“Erasing Native American names and images from the public square and from public discussion echoes a maneuver that plaintiffs have previously seen used by the eradicators of Native American heritage,” the lawsuit says. “Colorado repeats the same mistake in its paternalistic assumption that it must protect Native Americans by erasing cultural references to them and to their heritage.”

It says the plaintiffs “oppose the use of American Indian mascot performers and caricatures that mock Native American heritage.”

The plaintiffs intend to file a motion this week seeking an injunction that they hope will immediately halt implementation because districts can’t wait for the lawsuit to be heard and risk being fined $25,000 a month if they’re not in compliance, said William Trachman, an attorney with Mountain States Legal Foundation in Lakewood.

An important and deeply reported story, worth a read in its entirety.