“Imagine…”
Shared by Breanne Smedley
Last week, the student body of the high school I teach at took a vote.
The question: to retire the Chieftain mascot, or keep it.
It has been a part of a long, ongoing discussion about the appropriateness of the mascot.
Some say it’s cultural appropriation to use a mascot that misrepresents a nation of people.
Others claim that it is preserving the rich history of the Native Americans that occupied the land.
Before voting, students were required to engage in a five-part course examining both sides of the discussion.
They examined the history of the school and mascot, national, regional, and local information regarding Native American mascots.
They read a letter from a former student, a descendant of the Plains Cree, about her experience attending a school that uses a mascot that leads to misrepresentation of her culture.
They read a letter from the Confederated Tribes of Selitz Indians that stated they are “unwilling to provide support to banish Native American mascots from the public eye,” and have supported schools in the area to retain their mascots in order to prevent attempts to “exterminate our existence from our homelands.”
I held a discussion in my class prior to the vote.
Students offered their points of view. Many were passionate to either retain the mascot or retire it.
As I listened, I couldn’t help to feel the struggle.
I am not of a race that has a history of oppression.
I do not know what it feels like to have my land, culture, and family be banished.
I have not had to fight to protect the images of my past or see my history be slowly wiped away.
As I read the documents and listened to my students, I imagined what it would be like to be in the situation that some of my students, and many other Native Americans are in.
If I came from a history of oppression.
And a caricature of a face symbolizing my race was worn around schools, adorned in gyms, and plastered on fields and stadiums.
Would I feel proud, and not want it to go away for fear that the presence of my culture would go with it?
Would I feel hurt, because it opens the door wide open for others to misrepresent what I stand for?
How would I feel, listening to white students both defend and attempt to remove semblances of my culture?
Either way, I felt the tension, the struggle.
Which is only a fraction of what I’m sure those of Native descent feel.
It made me wonder if these are the right people to be making a decision such as this.
The students of Columbia River, 73% of which are white.
The vote came back.
79% in favor of keeping the Chieftain mascot.
21% in favor of changing it.
Is it a coincidence? Or would the results be different if the demographics were flipped?
I don’t have the answers. But I’m thankful for the dialogue.
And for my students, who have forced me to consider the cultural implications of things that I am never forced to confront.
I’ve learned that I will never be confronted with it. For me, it will always be imagining.
I have to seek it out. I have to keep imagining what others feel.
And it’s essential, not just for me, but for all those around me without a voice like mine, that I do.
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#CourageouslyListening
#MindfullyEvolving
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