How Much Courage Does It Take To Overcome Our White Privilege And Show Up For Racial Justice?

Me with Skowhegan alumni Tamarleigh Grenfell and Nancy Blaisdell Baxter at last night's school board meeting. Photo credit: Abby Chandler

A few of us were at the Skowhegan school board meeting last night to advocate for changing the "Indian" mascot. Some of us brought signs and, as we entered, a Skowhegan "Indian Pride" supporter who has been harassing me online and at my place of employment was stationed next to the entrance with his SIP sign. A blond woman I don't know went past us and snarled that there is no mascot. My friend and former school board member Abby Chandler responded by suggesting she look up mascot in the dictionary. We entered the meeting to find a sea of empty chairs. It was bad weather again but nothing like the ice storm on the night of the public forum January 8.

The chair of the board approached us an introduced herself, warning us that no public comments about the mascot would be allowed. At that point I had to decide whether to stick with my strategy of focusing on legal costs -- I'd written to Dixie Ring and her superintendent about a month ago asking what the budget is for legal advice around the mascot issue, and if they have expended all those funds yet. Others who weren't able to be there were urging a focus on the legal issue of whether the board can silence comments from the public. I decided to go with my gut and stick to my original plan, partly because I knew the meeting would end with an executive session to consult their attorney about what else. 

We are hearing that several board members are nervous about lawsuits stemming from discrimination against Native people and harassment of "changers" as the SIP people call us.

So I told Chairperson Ring that I intended to ask a financial question about legal costs. She remembered my email and appeared to care that I had never received a reply. She scurried back to the superintendent and then returned to tell me that Drummond Woodsum is on retainer but as to additional costs incurred the superintendent would respond to my query soon. As taxpayers in their school district, my friend Abby Chandler and  I really do have a right to know how they spend our money.

When the Visitors part of the agenda was reached, SAHS art teacher Iver Lofving stood up and made a brilliant presentation that showed a lot of courage as an employee of the district. Without ever directly mentioning the mascot problem, Iver cited the fact that, due to retirement of an instructor last year, 50 students who signed up for digital photography this year had been denied that opportunity to learn. He noted that the school is poised to decide what it will become, and that becoming an arts academy -- or perhaps a STEAM academy, he later told us -- would make Skowhegan Area High School attractive to prospective students. What shall we become? he asked the board. How can we face forward and not backwards?

Iver is a very creative person, and it was not the first time that his remarks about changing the mascot have impressed me as offering a unique perspective that focuses on possible solutions. Iver and his family have been harassed quite a bit over the years for his courage in taking a stand for the environment and for racial justice.

I then raised my hand and was recognized, and asked if I was going to speak about the mascot so they could silence me in advance. I said no but I wanted to ask if the moderator of the January forum was from Drummond Woodsum. They said yes, and Abby reported that the attorney waiting to go into executive session with them beamed.

I don't know what the retainer fee covers but my guess is that traveling to Skowhegan and spending several hours moderating a public forum would be an incremental expense.

Maulian Dana, Penobscot Nation ambassador, at the January 8 public forum on the mascot problem.

Then, one of my online harassers came forward and stood right next to me, having drink taken, to address the board about his children and his fiance's children busing issues. They live part of the week in one town and part in another town, and their parents want them to be transported to a different elementary school than the one they are supposed to attend based on their address. This was a lengthy complaint with many bureaucratic-type responses from school employees.

No other visitors spoke that I recall. There were no reporters present last night that I could recognize as such.

The most substantive thing to come out of the meeting was a decision to designate their next teacher workshop day on March 11 as a student seat day so that storm cancellations don't render seniors short of days when graduation rolls around. The teacher training will be moved to the end of the school calendar.

The most substantive thing that happened at the meeting, though, occurred in executive session after all in the audience were sent out of the room, including the police officer.

We await word on what Drummond Woodsum told MSAD 54 about their liabilities in the matter of their racist mascot and the behaviors it enables. 

Tamerleigh Grenfell   Photo credit: Abby Chandler

At the public forum on January 8 board member Harold Bigelow reportedly got into the face of Maulian (pronounced Molly-un) Dana, the Penobscot Nation ambassador, and said loudly "Hello MOO-lawn." Those who observed him do this (I did not) were surprised that was allowed to pass without a legal response. Or maybe there was a response that we're not yet aware of? Anyway, we can be pretty sure that the district's lawyers have some thoughts on that sort of thing.

I have not yet made any formal complaints about the husband of a school board member and SIP leader contacting my employers to complain about me writing this blog, to slander me by claiming I bully children, and to threaten my employers with a lawsuit if they don't rein me in. Also I have not addressed that someone (I think it is the same man) linked my blog to a girl-on-girl pornography website that same week.

There's nothing on my hard drive that I'm ashamed of or need to conceal, but I'm guessing the same could not be said by my harasser. An old school friend of mine who went to law school commented that he is leaving a paper trail of crimes, some of which could be felonies. My other legal advisers have said not to worry about the email to my employers, as retaliation to a public employee for exercising 1st amendment rights is unconstitutional, and there are many precedents establishing this.

It is uncomfortable to show up for racial justice. It can be scary and at times actually dangerous. I will keep doing it anyway. If you wished you had lived during the civil rights era of the 1960's and wondered what you would have done then to stand up to racism, you are living in a civil rights era now. And, you're doing it.

The next MSAD 54 board meeting will be held February 28 at 7pm in the middle school cafeteria. If ever a school board needed watching, this one does. See you there.