The world’s longest tanker, the 1,504-foot-long Seawise Giant built in Japan, is said to have more than five miles to stop.
This marine representation of various life lessons—the force of impulse, the importance of perseverance, and the tendency of moving elements to remain in motion until requested through an outside force—should bring some comfort to those who oppose it. Images of Native Americans in schools.
Because what they are looking for is a sea of replacement in public opinion towards entrenched cultural references such as the “redskins” and the “Indians”. And they want them in America as a whole and, more importantly, in the precise places where history has intricately woven those terms and the photographs they evoke into the fabric of the web: places like Langhorne, Bucks County; Sayre Township, Bradford County; and Susquehanna Township, Dauphin County.
For this reason alone, it is moderate to conclude that it will take time to exorcise from our sports groups and colleges the terms and representations that many today are, at best, outdated and culturally insensitive caricatures and, at worst, offensive, degrading and sectarian insults.
But when we examine how we were given here, it’s clear that Seawise Giant has nothing to do with the monster that the appropriation of Native American images in twentieth-century America has become and it’s no wonder that teams like the American Indian National Congress are still miles away from preventing it.
On October 30, 1926, penn’s Quakers went to the University of Illinois, whose deputy principal proposed a part-time track that told the football team’s encounter with pennsylvanians. An Illinois student dressed as a Native American and led a ceremonial ball. The football coach advised to call him “Chief Illinewek”. In their 2003 study article “Bosses, Brave, and Tomahawks: Using American Indians as College Mascots,” Robert Longwell-Grice and Hope Longwell-Grice take up the story.
“Chief Illinewek ran around the box ‘doing a lively Indian dance’, greeted the Pennsylvania supporters, and then smoked a peace pipe with William Penn (imitated through another University of Illinois student). The crowd enjoyed it and a culture was born “that lasted 80 years before ending in 2007.
Although the baseball franchise that would eventually move to Atlanta was known as the Braves since 1912 and the so-called Cleveland Indians debuted in 1915, the birth of Chief Illinewek was part of a boom in calls for sports teams related to Native Americans, school logos, and mascots in the 1920s and 1930s.
Investigators recounted a 1941 pitch the Central Michigan University coach made to the school’s student council that led the frame to replace its mascot from “The Bearcats” to “The Chippewas. “
According to Robert and Hope Longwell-Grice, the coach said: “The so-called ‘Chippewa’ opens up unlimited possibilities of pomp and staging for the organisation and sports teams. The Indian leader would be an exceptional marker for sports uniforms, the Indian powwow can update the support assembly and Indian ceremonies can be held on many occasions. School flags can become much more exciting, and despite everything, all Indian traditions have a strong appeal and can be used wisely.
Schools temporarily learned that they can seamlessly use this winning combination of increased fan appeal and greater logo opportunities to make money.
“Economically, those mascots make it easy to sell products because their stereotypical symbols attract alumni, academics and online supporters. Logos and similar products use the pet, and the “consequences” of the Native American motif are handled smoothly. Continuously expand new products for sale,” the researchers found.
Terry Borning is an internet programmer for the Sun Devils at Arizona State University, but in his spare time he indulges in his fascination with attractive and exclusive names and mascots of teams through the selection of content for MascotDB. com, the search database of more than 40,000 beyond and provides events. . The best schools, schools and professional groups in North America and their nicknames. He built the site in 2006 and still maintains it.
A review shows how widespread the use of Native American photographs and terms has become, especially in top schools.
In 2020, there were 1,232 Native American pets from the best schools in North America, according to research from the site through fivethirtyeight. com. More than a portion of the 1,232 use the term “warriors,” according to MascotDB. com. and MLB’s Cleveland Indians are now the commanders and goalies, respectively, the “Indians” remain the nickname of selection in some 375 North American high schools.
Forty schools still use the term “redskins,” some of them in Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan, although many Native Americans and non-Native Americans now use it as a vulgar epithet. You may be a “red man” if you live in Bellevue, Ohio; Cainsville, Missouri; Marquette, Michigan; Tewksbury, Massachusetts; Sisseton, South Dakota; or one of dozens of other towns and cities with high schools that use the nickname. There are 11 American high schools whose sports groups are still called “Savages,” five of them in Oklahoma. And if you attend Aniak Junior-Senior High School in Alaska, you’d be a “Half-Goer. “
Those to whom those vile terms can be comforted by knowing that replacement is coming, albeit slowly. The MascotDB. com figure of 1,232 major schools represents an improvement. After all, similar research of the site conducted in 2014 through fivethirtyeight. com learned about 1,900 top schools that employ Native American names or images.
In Pennsylvania, the best schools that use “Indians” come with Council Rock North in Bucks County; Donegal in County Lancaster; Juniata in Juniata County; Domain of Souderton County and Upper Perkiomen; and Waynesboro Domain of Franklin County.
The Susquehanna Township School District in Dauphin County attempted to remove the nickname “Indians” from its best school. Since August 2020, more than 5000 people signed a petition in Change. org titled “Susquehanna’s racist mascot MUST change. “According to policy in PennLive. com, this fall saw the formation of a committee comprised of school board members, administrators, alumni, staff and academics to examine the issue. His paintings culminated with the district he pronounced in May 2021 that he would avoid using the term “Indians” on his mascot and school images.
New school board members were sworn in in early 2022, however, they short-circuited the transfer to a new mascot by voting against Susquehanna’s “Lion,” the consensual selection of a committee of scholars and faculty. This vote telegraphed the board’s resolution in July to reinstate the “Indian” in a 6-2 vote.
Similarly, the board of trustees of the South York County School District, home of the Susquehannock High School Warriors, voted in April 2021 to move away from its logo, which depicted a Native American warrior with a tomahawk and a pipe on his head. But in February, newly elected school board members who had partly implemented the symbol reopened the poignant discussion there. Finally, in August, the school board approved new logos that did not come with the indigenous warrior. The vote was a 5-4 squeak.
Neshaminy High School is one of the top two schools in Pennsylvania that still bears the “Redskins” logo, the mascot has been under siege for a decade. After a week of hearings before the Pennsylvania Board of Human Relations, the firm ordered the Neshaminy School District in 2019 to avoid employing logos and photographs that “negatively stereotype Native Americans. “But Neshaminy appealed the ruling to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, which struck down the PHRC’s ruling in 2021.
And the PHRC has not appealed to a higher court, Donna Fann-Boyle, who has Chocktow-Cherokee ancestry and has been asking for the call to be replaced for years, does not give up. She is a member of Middletown Township Human Relations and the Coalition of Natives and Allies, which in May hosted a data forum on Native American history in Middletown. Coalition members hope that a public informed about the plight of indigenous peoples will no longer settle for their school district using them for their own benefit. Purposes
The best school in Pennsylvania that uses “redskins” is Sayre High School in rural Bradford County. While the Coalition of Natives and Allies amassed signatures on a petition from Change. org two years ago that finally got more than 3450 names, the district did not influence.
Following the NFL franchise’s resolution to eliminate the so-called “Washington Redskins,” the Sayre School District’s Chairman of the Board of Directors issued a statement, in part, that while the district is “committed to addressing vital issues of equity and inclusion to ensure we provide a safe and welcoming educational environment for the students and families we serve. “the call at the board level”.
Many oppose the “cancellation” of Native American pets. And it makes sense that many of our school forums simply don’t need to touch on the factor at a time when they already face considerations about school protection and hot political issues like their library content, their reaction to COVID-19, and masking decisions, as well as the genuine or imaginary incorporation of critical concepts from race theory into programs.
Whatever the explanation of why, to avoid the topic, Americans and school districts turn to the same playbook when asked to replace those nicknames.
Although their reasons for avoiding the topic may vary, they express a non-unusual refrain.
“This war is more productive in the court of public opinion,” Philadelphia radio host Dom Giordano said in a 2021 column on the Neshaminy Redskins.
“It is vital not to forget that our schools (in Port Neches-Groves) belong to the PNG COMMUNITY and that any long-term resolution on this issue will also belong to the community,” mike Gonzales, superintendent of schools for the Port Neches-Groves Independent School District, wrote in a challenge following the use of the nickname “Indians” by Texas High School.
In Massachusetts, the Greenfield Recorder, which covers the “Redmen” of Tewksbury Memorial High School, published an editorial that said, “Some pet names (Redmen and Redskins, for example) seem more problematic than others. local communities that use them to decide. “
This hackneyed argument works for those opposed to replacing because it is based on school communities composed primarily of whites who grew up and raised their children in the same villages that for generations have followed nicknames.
Changing school mascots is sometimes frowned upon when questioning alumni, students, and members of the school network. The Network of the Municipality of Susquehanna liked to remain the mascot “Indians” by a margin of 58% to 42%, according to a survey. It’s an old poll, yet in 2012, a Bucks County Courier Times poll found that 234 readers sought Neshaminy to keep the call and only 34 said it was changed.
When the South York County School District asked students, alumni and parents about the “Warriors” logo, 4 of the five of the more than 3300 respondents felt the need to remove it.
The “let the network decide” strategy gives little voice to genuine Native Americans in the terms that predominantly white establishments use to describe them, as reviews of the few Native Americans in those communities are governed by the abundant volume of perspectives coming from their European countries. American neighbors. In this way, Native Americans see their perspectives on their own history collapse.
Philadelphia State Rep. Chris Rabb, D-200, needs Pennsylvania to enroll in several states, adding California, Maine, Oregon and Wisconsin, which already ban Native American pets in public schools.
“Pennsylvania will have to dedicate itself to ending the widespread era of indigenous collective heritage and blatant cultural appropriation,” Rabb said in an October note seeking help with its ban.
Rabb announced this summer that he plans to submit his bill no later than Oct. 10, Indigenous Peoples Day, which honors Native American history and culture.
“It is well established that pets and the like that stereotype or fetishize indigenous peoples are highly correlated with the alarming suicide rate among indigenous youth,” Rabb said. “Basically, the use of ‘Indian’ pets is a denial of the personality of indigenous people. “indigenous peoples, which has genuine consequences. “
And as the bill faces an uphill war in the Republican-led General Assembly, Rabb and his allies are playing the longest of long games in their effort to avoid despite all the use of Native American imagery in top American schools.
It would possibly be interesting to note that the seawise Giant tanker, which is twice as long as the Titanic and longer than the Empire State Building, built in the 1970s, sunk by Saddam Hussein in 1988, resurrected from the seabed of Persia. Gulf, renovated, commissioned and put into service for another 20 years.
Eventually, however, time passed. Despite everything, it was suspended in 2009.