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.

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.