A Clue To The Skowhegan Indian Pride Conundrum: "Don't Change The One Thing That Hasn't Changed In Our School System"

I hate to use quotation marks in my titles because the template I'm using on Blogger always turns the opening mark wrong side around. (Yes, I am a grammar nerd.)

I made an exception today because I wanted to quote a Facebook post that contained a significant contribution to the debate over retiring the outdated "Indian" team name and mascot at Skowhegan Area High School.



"Don't change the one thing that hasn't changed in our school system!!!" 

writes Jessica Keene, a young mother who has already created and shared a keepsake for her children's eventual graduation in the years to come. (Yes, it has some punctuation issues too.)

Ms. Keene also copied and pasted a looong quote from Wikipedia as a comment on my share of the petition to retire the Indian. Without quotation marks or attribution. That's plagiarism, and that also hasn't changed since she was in school.

The reason Ms. Keene's Facebook account came to my attention in the first place is that yesterday she singled out my sister and me in another post. This was most likely because we gave a joint interview that was published in the Waterville Morning Sentinel.



Maulian Dana, Penobscot Tribal Ambassador, has been threatened many times by Skowhegan "Indian Pride" group members, and rape is a common theme in those threats. I can understand where she was coming from when she commented:

I will respectfully disagree from the comfort of my white privilege and membership in one of the founding families of Skowhegan (you can read more about us at the Skowhegan History House display outside along the banks of the Kennebec River).

I am protected from disappearing without a trace like so many Native women and girls who are kidnapped and never heard from again. If I am physically attacked, the police and the courts will respond to enforce the law. If I need legal advice, I can get it from many available sources. This is what is meant by institutional racism.

Reading about why people are motivated to join hate groups helped me understand that they are looking for a feeling of belonging to something greater than themselves.

I totally get that. Just having a certain family name isn't enough to give my life meaning. I've been involved as a peace and social justice activist for the same reason: belonging to a community working toward something that transcends my own family life.

Sometimes I get a big adrenaline rush, like when I was part of a peace group acquitted of criminal trespass charges on a successful 1st Amendment defense.

Sometimes when I am at a large gathering of peace workers I am suddenly able to weep for the millions of lives ended or damaged by the U.S. military machine.

Sometimes when I march for climate justice with my family, I am comforted by knowing there are lots of others concerned about destroying the planet's life support for humans. Especially wise indigenous voices, to whom we should listen more carefully.

Sometimes I get a thrill hearing from former students or their parents about the lasting influence of my participation in their education. My education community stretches from friends I met in elementary school to friends I teach with now. Sometimes they get into conversations with each other over an article I share on Facebook. How cool is that?

There is nothing wrong with the human desire to belong to a community with values we share. We are social animals, and there is so much suffering in life that often we need to find meaning in order to move forward.

I don't belong to the Native community, but they are my neighbors, my students, and my teachers. I've admired and supported their water protection actions and their educational efforts here in Maine. I've been enriched by the opportunity to be a white ally in the quest to retire an outdated and offensive team name/mascot. I've met so many wise people I might not have known otherwise (looking at you, Maulian, Amelia Tuplin and Dwayne Tomah).

Jessica, if you've read this far, I will say that many things about the MSAD 54 district have not changed in the years since my now adult children attended those schools. Sports is still far more important than it needs to be, special education still aims to mainstream students into regular ed classrooms as appropriate to meet their special needs, and there is still gifted and talented education from primary grades through graduation. The high school still hosts the Drama Festival Regionals, and students still go to Boys and Girls State to learn how our government is supposed to work.

Jessica, right now your alumni community and your MSAD 54 parent community are divided by the Indian team name. In order to come together again, the name has to go.

With your lovely children and your friends and other family, you will be able to find belonging even without Skowhegan Indian Pride. Maybe you will also find yourself in a group with people interested in local history and prehistory. 

I'm rooting for you.

UPDATE: Shortly after I published this post, Jessica Keene removed the post with my name in it as well as the post I quoted from in my title. I edited this post to use screenshots instead of embedding her posts, but I do not have a screenshot of the one I quoted from. I do have screenshots of her calling my sister the "b" word, but I'm not going to share those.