I do not understand why the Turners Falls mascot question is even a question. This mascot is an appropriation and a caricature of a minority group’s identity, and that group has been extremely clear, here and everywhere in this country, that this is deeply offensive to them. And yet white people still seem to believe that we are the only ones who should get to care and to decide what is offensive, or if this deep offense to a minority group is somehow “worthwhile.”
My own high school mascot was the Ironmen. I have no idea what Ironmen are, but if I were to meet some, and find out that they did not want to be the rallying cry for my sports teams, then I would want my high school to change the mascot. I would be ashamed of having taken part in something that caused and perpetuated pain to that group.
White people took the land that is now the United States by force, murdering and systematically oppressing the native peoples that were here. The United States continues to marginalize and oppress them today. There are horrible things happening in North Dakota TODAY, where militarized police and private corporate interests are trying to force the construction of a pipeline on land that, by legal treaty, belongs to Native Americans, not to us. Many native reservations are by far the most impoverished places in the U.S.
We could honor native groups by honoring our signed treaties, respecting their rights, and supporting their basic survival and well-being and not by ignoring all of those and then dismissing their own views on our use of an offensive caricature of their identity. The mascot is racist. And it’s possibly even more racist that its continued use is even up for debate.
Rachel Gordon
Greenfield