Skowhegan Elementary Teacher: Many Teachers Want Mascot Retired, But Board Does Not Listen To Us

As the adult child of an alcoholic, I experience stress around listening to excuses. Ironically, for the last 25 years I've worked as a public school teacher and listening to excuses is part of the job. 

This condition of mine made it challenging to go door-to-door in Skowhegan last Sunday. 

My canvassing partner and I listened to several versions of stuff white people say when they are excusing their own failure to show up for racial justice. 

The gist of what they told us went something like this: I am in my [white privilege] comfort zone and I won't do anything that might take me out of that zone. 

Of course no one actually used the words white privilege. Its tremendous power rests on its pervasive yet invisible nature.

The person who articulated it best shared that they only leave online political comments under a disguised name. They gave the example that they are against Trump, but if they had a bumper sticker that was anti-Trump, someone would trash their car. This person also thought the mascot controversy was fairly new and was quite surprised to find that Native people have been requesting that it change since 1990. They characterized the eventual retirement of the "Indian" team name as inevitable, but they weren't sure if it would take another 5 or even 10 years. And they certainly weren't going to help hasten the process even though they freely admitted it would be the right thing to stop being offensive in the 21st century.

I don't see why this is a problem, is what several of the less politically aware folks told canvassers. Many others stated that they were of two minds, that they could see both sides, clearly feeling that this was the perfect excuse not to get involved.

We hope the mascot will have retired by spring, and we await the February 28 school board meeting with interest.

However, if the pretendians are still around come spring, then we'll canvass again. As we did last Sunday, we'll offer information on the local history of Native people, why the American Psychological Association found Native mascots harmful to all students, and copies of lovely posters reminding us that we are on indigenous land.

Summary of Door Notes Sheets

Skowhegan canvass Feb. 10, 2019

TOTAL RESPONSES: 18

FOR CHANGE: 7 (39%)

AGAINST CHANGE: 2 (11%)

NEUTRAL/ SEE BOTH SIDES / IDK: 9 (50%)

1. Support, concerned with how we get there
2. Support, has high school kids
3. Saw both side, no kids
4. Yes!!!
5. Yes!!!
6. Thinks stay same, a middle school kid
7. Didn’t open door, wants to keep mascot, gave public comment
8. Hadn’t heard much, in support of change, not interested in being involved
9. No opinion, no convo
10. 50/50, went to the high school, receptive, took our handouts
11. 50/50, thinks we should educate, we’re doing good work, husband’s school in Sanford changed name. Did not want to sign anything or take papers. Seemed a little defensive/cautious. Doesn’t think mascot was initially meant to upset anyone.
12. Not down to talk
13. Supportive / but attached to name. The longer we spoke the more he was convinced. “If we change this, we’ll have to change more.” Thought mascot was degrading but not name.
14. Sympathetic, not willing to take action.
15. Didn’t know much about the controversy, talked about pride, took historical info & Hope’s essay
16. Haven’t given it much thought, don’t see why the controversy is “so ugly”
17. Did not engage
18. In favor of change, Skowhegan elementary school teacher, said many teachers want change but school board doesn’t listen to staff

I find #18 particularly compelling. MSAD 54 school board directors, are you listening?

Protecting The Children When It Cannot Be Done

Yesterday on the bridge a car pulled over and motioned me to approach. I was carrying a sign my husband made that says NO ROOM FOR RACISM while the rest of us held various messages opposing war and promoting peace.

A young white man with two children in the car greeted me with a big, friendly grin (in retrospect I'm pretty sure this was because I, too, am white).

Him: What is your sign about? What racism is it about?

Me: Um, white supremacy.

Him: You've got it all wrong. The racism is all on the other side. I can prove it! I have tons of videos I can show you.

Me: Is that what you're teaching your kids? I am going to cry. I've got to go.

Then, I walked away. Yes, I bailed on the chance to engage in some racial justice dialogue with kids as part of the audience. Why would I do that?

I was already struggling with very low spirits and I really did think I might cry. Or, fail to listen with an open heart and without betraying my disgust.

A student of mine watched his only parent get busted for heroin/fentanyl and put in handcuffs before school last week. The student was traumatized and so was I. Another family member whisked him away before the day ended. It was reported that some of the drugs were found in my student's bureau drawers. I doubt that we will see him again.

This is a common occurrence with children at risk: they disappear suddenly from your classroom community, and you mourn their absence. I am reminded of indigenous groups believing that the loss of a person creates a gap which weakens the group.

I have been mourning all weekend, and today is the day I will find ways to help the other seven year olds process why a member of our community has vanished.

There are children in my family that have alcoholic or otherwise drug addicted parents. 

Some of their parents won't speak to me anymore after I've objected to their being staggering drunk while "caring" for their children, driving them around in a car. My late brother's ex-wife sent me a diatribe claiming I am the most judgmental person on the planet and I live to judge to others.

Not being able to protect children from the ill effects of their parents' diseases of despair is a major theme of my life. I was the oldest child in a family with an alcoholic parent. Alcoholism has plagued both sides of my family for generations. Heroin, cocaine and other substances have crept in there, too. As there's little I can do about that, I speak up against racism and the empire's racist wars.

These days many people are willing to speak out against racism while few are willing to speak out against our many, many wars.

It doesn't matter to me if the majority or some guy in a passing car disagree with my point of view. How many times have I gotten yelled for being wrong when it turned out in the end I was right about what was really going on? More times than I can count. I didn't write this essay on following your own lights by Caitlin Johnstone, but I wish I had: "It Is Your Human Duty To Stand Unapologetically In Your Own Authority."

In the end, the tax heist performed in the dark hours before dawn last week will come home to roost. And so will the chickens of our chicken shit wars.

In five years I may not be able to afford the gas money to drive into town and stand on the bridge each Sunday. I may be physically attacked for daring to stand up to white supremacists. I may be jailed for saying that Muslims pose no threat to our safety, that billionaires don't need more tax breaks or that kleptocracy will be the undoing of civil society.

I just hope I'm not too discouraged by then to not go quietly.

Skowhegan On The Map Again For Racist Chamber Of Commerce Campaign To Hunt The Indian

Since the insistence on clinging to the racist "Indian" mascot of Skowhegan Area High School has in the past brought national press attention, I expect the blundering of Skowhegan's Chamber of Commerce will do so as well.

As a fun holiday promotion the Chamber, composed of local businesses who proudly display signs supporting the racist team mascot, decided to create the first annual "hunt the Indian."

You can't make this shit up. Here, in their own words, (from a screenshot of a post later taken down after the Chamber began hearing from lots of offended people):



Now the Chamber has apologized for their (white privilege-induced) blind spot and promised to rename the scavenger hunt.



They have not, and I suspect will not, addressed the problem of the original large wooden statue that they are basing their identity on. That "Indian" (pictured above) was created decades ago by Bernard Langlais, a sculptor whose works can be found throughout the town. Native people are not keen on this artifact of cultural appropriation. As Penboscot chief Barry Dana observed to me, "It doesn't look like any Indian I ever knew."

Native people struggle every Halloween with Pocahottie costumes and every sports season with "war paint", "war whoops" and Tomahawk chops. Just this fall Wells High School in southern Maine saw a display of these offensive practices on behalf of a team named "the warriors" and against a team headed up by a Native quarterback. The quarterback's mother Amelia Tuplin made a huge fuss about it, as well she might.

I have repeatedly heard Native adults say how difficult it is to explain to their children why their culture is being publicly mocked.

The historical underpinnings of this gruesomely insensitive aftermath of attempted genocide of the Native people in North America are about as bad as it gets.

Rick York was a Skowhegan Area High School coach when he sent this photo of a "scalp towel" accompanied by a joke to school board member Jennifer Poirier, who also appeared to find it pretty amusing.

Commonly portrayed in popular culture and cartoons as scalpers, Native people were in fact the scalpees in the early centuries of European invasion and occupation of their homelands. 

From the record of a 1749 war council by English military forces led by aristocrat George Cornwallis:

"For, those cause we by and with the advice and consent of His Majesty's Council, do hereby authorize and command all Officers Civil and Military, and all His Majesty's Subjects or others to annoy, distress, take or destroy the Savage commonly called Micmac, wherever they are found, and all as such as aiding and assisting them, give further by and with the consent and advice of His Majesty's Council, do promise a reward of ten Guineas for every Indian Micmac taken or killed, to be paid upon producing such Savage taken or his scalp (as in the custom of America) if killed to the Officer Commanding."

Micmacs (a word also rendered in the Roman alphabet as Mi'kmaq) are part of the Wabanaki confederacy which is comprised of Native groups still living in North America.

Other reasons why a cutesy "Indian hunt" is anything but cute:

• Native children were being removed from their homes and placed into abusive foster care en masse in Maine as recently as the 1970's. The Wabanaki Truth & Reconciliation Commission compiled a report of this tragedy which you can read here.

• Native women are still among the most likely to experience violence including rape and murder of any group in North America. Many of these crimes are hardly investigated and never solved.

• Native people have been resisting capitalism's destruction of the balance in our natural environment for profit for hundreds of years now. We should listen to them, else we will continue down the path of climate chaos and extreme weather.

Aftermath of the nor'easter of October, 2017 in Portland Maine, a storm which knocked out electric power for days and affected more than one million customers in New England. It also resulted in raw sewage flowing into rivers, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.

I hope the Skowhegan Chamber of Commerce will do the right thing, but I'm not holding my breath. The idea that profit trumps all other considerations is the hallmark of the stunted thinking that led to where we find ourselves today.

Now where is that Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) group I keep waiting for in Skowhegan? If there's not one by the time I retire, I pledge to start one myself.

Black Lives Matter And Trans Rights Are Human Rights Word Out To Augusta

Yesterday about two dozen people canvassed neighborhoods in Maine's capital city where KKK flyers were thrown onto lawns or stapled to telephone poles last January. Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) organized several rounds of deep listening in towns around Maine where KKK recruitment flyers were found, including Augusta. (Trigger warning: clicking on this link will take you to an article that includes a photo of the flyer.)

Some who received the KKK flyers felt they had been targeted because they are immigrants and or people of color. 

I teamed up with Jan to knock on doors using a prepared script to ask residents how they felt about the flyers, and if they would be willing to display a lawn sign (pictured above) or attend a community discussion to support the families who felt targeted.

A potentially scary activity but as good a way as I could imagine to spend my extra day off on Indigenous Peoples Day, formerly Genocidal Maniac Day.

The canvassing was well-organized and we had time to rehearse and put safety measures in place. Jan and I traveled with Lydia and Bridget who knocked on the doors across the street from us.

me, Jan, Bridget & Lydia

We were assigned a middle class neighborhood up the hill from where the flyers had been found. Everyone we talked to was white and said they had not seen or even heard about the flyers. Reactions to the news ranged from astonishment and "That's disgusting!" to disinterest. Two of the older people whose homes we visited just wanted to talk to someone and we listened to accounts of their daily struggles without making much headway with our script. That was ok with us.

We started with a resident I'll call Teflon man who was adamant that KKK flyers in his town were none of his concern. His accent suggested he was from NY originally, and he took us patiently through the common talking points of white privilege without ever uttering the phrase. For example, he argued that if police are killing Black people, might it be because the Black people are criminals, and cops get killed every day in the line of duty? He claimed he was not racist, but he had no interest in learning more about how to stand with targeted people in his community. He told us he didn't consider the KKK much of a force and that even if it were, it certainly wasn't his problem.

He also said Antifa was just as bad as facists because, well, they were fascists too. He was unable to explain why he believed this to be so, or to make a distinction between free speech and hate speech. I asked if he would be willing to share where he got information about current events and he responded, "From a wide variety of sources: newspapers, tv and radio." Jan and I thanked him for his time and moved on.

Two of our contacts were new in town and had moved there for work after the flyering incident last January. Both of the newcomers said they were concerned about the news and they signed up to receive more information. One was working at a restaurant and didn't appear to speak much English or to understand what we were saying; she took a flyer and said she would share it with the owner later.

One man who was too busy to talk took our information and said he hadn't heard about the KKK flyers but added, "I'm not surprised." I was disappointed that he didn't have time to explain more about that.

Another man took our information and said that, as a Jehovah's Witness, he often canvassed too. He also said that, although he was against racism personally, he and his faith group did not take a stand on political issues because it might alienate people.

Our final contact was a woman who expressed disgust and was very concerned. She was eager to display the lawn sign we offered (pictured above) and said when she saw it that she had a trans family member and really appreciated that part of the message.

When the larger group reconvened to debrief we heard that one pair had encountered a man with a swastika tattoo they noticed only after giving him info on the community meeting and SURJ. His response to their saying they were concerned about the KKK flyers was a vaguely threatening, "You should be." This led some in our group to note the need to organize security for the community meeting.

Most interesting in the debrief was news that some elderly contacts had an historical awareness of the KKK in the area during the early 20th century.

One woman told the canvassers she knew where their old headquarters was nearby. The KKK's history in Maine is well-documented and at one time they had membership in the tens of thousands. They targeted immigrants, Catholics, Jews and people of color.

Image: Maine Memory Network with caption, This is an Associated Press photo with accompanying text that reads in part, "Deputy Carl Churchill displays a Ku Klux Klan cape and hood he cut down from its perch 20 feet up a power pole." 

Another woman told the SURJ volunteers that her grandfather had been a KKK leader, organizing secretive harrassment by night and then serving as a respectable government official by day. She said that it was difficult to talk about racism with her family and they had strained relations as a result.

SURJ is a group for white people who want to do the work with other white people to address systemic racism and white supremacy. There are currently three chapters in Maine and I suspect Augusta will soon be getting its own chapter. Yesterday's canvas was one in a series of visits to towns targeted by the KKK including Boothbay, Freeport, and Appleton.

I wish I had more capacity to organize a chapter for Skowhegan, which has the last racist high school mascot in Maine and which also saw KKK flyers appear last year. Ditto my own school district where the Civil Rights Team organized a response when flyers turned up in classrooms there and administrators buried the news.

For now, I'll continue to work on anti-racist education and help out when I can. Sharing this video, for example. Depending on how you feel about organized religion, you may be surprised by the ending. For myself, it was good to see what I consider real Christian ethics in action. You know, like Love one another.



For subscribers who read this blog post via email, you can see the video here: https://youtu.be/bc7aUSZ-gTU

White People: What Will We Do To Change Our Legacy Of Violence?

Photo credit: Natania Kremer on Twitter during #MillionsMarchNYC on Dec. 13, 2014

Photo credit: Sass Linneken

You may remember this photo of rising 9th grader Laykenn Kurtzer in dialogue with an older man who was protesting her monthly vigil for racial justice in central Maine. Their body language struck me as interesting and I wanted to find out more about what they said, so I contacted Laykenn for an interview.

Laykenn said that they crossed the bridge because they wanted to ask what made him think that there was no racial tension in Lewiston. "He was kind and willing to talk to me; he was very civil about it," said Laykenn.

"I went over because I just wanted to talk, not argue."

Besides repeating "all lives matter" several times, Laykenn reports that the man's main point was that the vigil was in the wrong place.

"He said that we should be standing in front of a police station where cops have killed black people without getting in trouble, or having any charges brought against them. He said that cops aren't bad but they should be getting punished. He told me he would go with us and hold a Black Lives Matter sign to protest at a police station in another city."

I wondered if they asked him if he has gone to any of those protests (there have certainly been ample opportunities) but Laykenn said no.

Laykenn said, "I explained that we stand here because we are trying to get people to be aware of the Black Lives Matter movement."

Their discussion lasted about half an hour, with the man circling back to his main talking points several times.

Laykenn and mom Sass Linneken are regulars at the monthly vigil organized by the group Showing Up For Racial Justice, (SURJ) Central Maine chapter.
Here they are standing on the Auburn side of the bridge to Lewiston in May, 2016.

One possible effect of the counter protest was that people in many cars shouted "all lives matter" as they passed. Laykenn's impression was that there were slightly more negative responses than positive ones, while at most of the monthly vigils they've attended the reactions of those passing have been more positive than negative -- often in the form of beeps and thumbs up. (My thought is that this change could also be due to the Republican Party openly endorsing racism at their recent convention, or a response to recent news of police being killed in Dallas and in San Diego.)

One thing that clearly disturbed them was when "a big pickup truck got really, really close to the sidewalk where we [i.e. the SURJ vigilers] were standing and blew out black exhaust all along the bridge. That was scary."

Personally, I have seldom been at a demonstration for either racial justice or peace in central Maine without at least one large pickup truck aggressively creating noise and/or smoke in response to the messages displayed. I suppose the drivers think they are engaging in dialogue?

In response to my share of the photo of Laykenn's conversation I heard from Grace Braley, a peace organizer in southern Maine. She was reminded of the inscription on a statue of Melchior Ocampo she saw in Morelia, Mexico:

Es hablando no matandonos como habremos de entendernos. 
(It is with talking, not killing, that we have to understand each other.)

In case you're wondering why I didn't interview the man in the photo, too, I have a couple of reasons.

At first I did not know who he was (nor did Laykenn), then another SURJ member contacted me to say that he is a local minister who leads a group called the Jesus Party along with his wife. (Laykenn said there was a woman standing with him holding a sign that said something about god that they can't exactly remember. Laykenn did not speak with the woman.) After my sister Hope did some internet research I found that this man is often online complaining that no one listens to his "all lives matter" message.


Laykenn listened, but since my blog does not exist to promote hateful messages I decided not to attempt to interview him. That is one of the things I will do as a white person who wants to change our legacy of violence. What will you do?