Help Needed! Tell The Maine Senate, We Need LD 944 Because The Locals Are Out Of Control

A die-hard Skowhegan _____ Pride member laying down at the edge of a very busy road on Sunday, April 28, 2019.

As you may know, the school board in Skowhegan -- MSAD 54 -- has been targeted by the mob clinging to their now retired Native mascot and team name. Threats were shouted, specifically at Chair Dixie Ring, at their last meeting when they voted not to hold a referendum on the mascot issue. You can see this disgraceful treatment of the recently re-elected Ring of Canaan in this video.



(If the embedded video doesn't work for you, view it here on Somerset Community TV 11's YouTube channel.)

What you can't see:

* The drunk husband of a school board member who organizes Skowhegan _______ Pride threatening the wife of another school board member as he leaves the meeting (some say, was asked to leave by one of the five -- yes, five -- uniformed Skowhegan police officers on duty that night). It is now considered dangerous to hold a board meeting in Skowhegan without a strong police presence.

* Me peeking out the door to check if it was safe to go to the parking lot, seeing police officers and, as a white person, thinking, Yup, it's ok to walk to my car alone now.

* Another board member -- the one who sounds the most incoherent and angry in the video -- giving the middle finger to a Skowhegan Area High School teacher who favored change and was driving past the area where the S_P group protests on Sunday (see photo of one of them above).

How can you help?

Write to the Democrats in the Maine Senate TODAY.

I expect that they will vote on LD 944, An act to ban Native mascots in all schools, on Tuesday, so time is of the essence!

It will help quell the mob in Skowhegan if this bill, which has already passed the House, is enacted.

Here is a handy web page with a contact form for each Maine senator whose vote we need to pass this legislation:

If you copy and paste your message into each senator's form, it goes rather quickly.

Note that I heard back from Senate Majority Leader Nate Libby in the affirmative when I wrote to him a few weeks ago:

In case you think this is a slam dunk, the Republican senator representing Skowhegan got the vote on the bill delayed last week -- on the thin pretext that it was a day of mourning for Corporal Eugene Cole who was killed by a drug addict in nearby Norridgewock a year ago -- but really so that more arm twisting could ensue.

Please help the MSAD 54 school board, which has done the right thing at last, stand firm in the face of local control that is more like local out-of-control. Civil rights are at stake. Thank you.

We Have A Name, Bestowed By Skowhegan So-Called Indian Pride: We Are Changers!

Brewer High School's mascot logo

Organizing for social change can be tiring. Especially in Maine, where 50% of our winter plans go astray as the weekly (or twice weekly) storms brought on by climate change necessitate canceling events like a door to door campaign. As an organizer I often have several precious hours already invested in an event that gets snowed out.

So that is one of the reasons that local people don't often take a leading role in changing the Skowhegan Area High School mascot from pretendians to something fun and inoffensive. Osprey anyone? (I think it's most likely they will change to Patriots, but any mascot based on human beings is likely to be problematic.)

This is a comment thread on SIP leader and conflict-of-interest board member Jennifer Poirier's post about the Skowhegan girls basketball team beating the Brewer High School Witches. I am going to assume that Mary Compton calling them "ho" is a typo and that she meant to type "go." I am also going to assume that Mindy Gilbert doesn't know that there is a sizeable Wiccan community in our area, one that proudly draws on what they call "Old Traditions of Witchcraft," and that some members may very well be offended by Brewer's mascot.

Probably Mindy did not major in history, and thus may be only dimly aware that many alleged witches were tortured to death in New England. There are towns like Salem, Massachsetts that have built an entire tourist industry on this history.

The real point here is that SIP folks think it is hilarious to offend people.

And, to return to my original point, it is exhausting trying to reason with people who find it fun to offend. For white people like me, there is the option to walk away from the problem muttering that you can't fix stupid. But it isn't stupidity, it's ignorance. And not knowing is an entirely different thing from not being capable of understanding.

Consider this SIP post in the same thread, from a political theorist posting as Joseph Pais:

Pais has a Facebook profile that includes a MAGA hat child pissing on the word Hillary (Clinton, presumably) from 2016, so it would appear that his analytical chops have developed over the last couple of years.

"Leaving race out of the argument they [changers] have no foundation to stand on" starts down a strategic path that does afford some insight. White man says: we refuse to talk about race. That's white privilege in a nutshell.

White privilege turns the corner to white supremacy when it says: "that's when you see the real racist in this argument come out."

They are talking about Penobscot tribal ambassador Maulian Dana here, whom they have demonized to the point where I'm surprised Joseph Pais hasn't photoshopped his MAGA hat meme to swap out Hillary for Maulian. It's likely that some in SIP have thought about it.

However, they have a mole in their closed Facebook group, and they know for certain that an image like that would turn up not only in this blog but also in newspapers and t.v. channels in Maine.

Pretending that Maulian "stands alone" despite the enormous turnout of Native people from several Wabanaki tribes, and that she is just doing it for attention, are common themes for SIP.

The reference above alleging that she "doesn't keep her word" means this, I think: the school board voted 11-9 in 2015 to keep using the racist mascot, and the SIP folks imagined that Maulian and the other changers had agreed to slink away, silenced, if the school board vote went against them.

Key point from Jennifer's post above: it's not the institutionalized racism that is causing turmoil, it's commenting on the racism. White silence is required to maintain the status quo. Got it.

Would it surprise you to know that some changers on the board were threatened with physical harm because they voted to retire the Indian mascot? Some had the courage and good enough health to continue serving on the school board anyway. Not all have been up to the continuous, arduous task.

In fact, Not Your Mascot chapters in Maine and throughout North America have made it perfectly clear that they will not be silenced. And that they will not go away until all the Native mascots and team names are in the dustbin of history.

I stand with them. And I'm not going away either, no matter how weary I get.

Saying Native Mascots Honor Indigenous People Masks White Insecurity, Fear Of Competition

Cartographer Aaron Carapella with his educational map, one of a series you can buy to donate to a school,
from the website Tribal Nations Maps (photo credit: Hansi Lo Wang/NPR) 

When white Europeans first encountered indigenous people in what would come to be called the Americas, they were amazed. Clearly these were fellow humans, but they were so healthy and vigorous compared with the whites after a long sea voyage fleeing pestilence and famine in Eurasia.

"They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features." That is a translation from the memoirs of Christopher Columbus, who hacked off the hands of the handsome Arawak people when they did not bring him enough gold. (Source: Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States).

Aside from their physical appearance, Native people appeared to be highly skilled hunters and gatherers. Their tens (hundreds?) of thousands of years of experience in relationship with the ecosystems where they flourished gave them what appeared to be almost supernatural powers as seen by starving white people. Even sustainable agriculture, which had been shared via trade from its origins in Mesoamerica, was practiced skillfully; the "three sisters" of corn, beans and squash supported each other in cultivation and then produced complete protein when eaten together.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, convened to break a cycle of violence between various Native groups of the woodlands, was studied as a model in representative democracy. Too bad the founding fathers-only culture of the whites did not take note that a sachem or tribal leader was respected not only as an accomplished hunter, but as a generous man or woman who was skilled at listening. Also, that the elder women could and would remove a sachem who was not serving the people.

Typical of the patriarchal culture of the invaders, Native women were demeaned with an insulting nickname I won't repeat here while Native males were exalted with the mythic stereotype "braves."

Inauthentic portrayals of Native people began to ornament consumer products -- in much the same way that Australian white colonists created and used images of the indigenous people of their continent. 

"Aboriginalia" collected and repurposed by Tony Albert, Ybarra conceptual artist,
for his show "Visible" at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Australia, 2018

I've written before about the idea that fear of competition is what drives xenophobia in the U.S. today.

Colonizers are eternally insecure.

The very ground they stand on is contested. They often starve or go mad. They sometimes die out before their germs can infect the Natives, even if the colonizers distribute contaminated items from the biological warfare arsenal of attempted genocide. They are "terrified Inhabitants" battling an insurgency that seems to materialize from nowhere, a forest where "every Tree is become an Indian" (from Col. Henry Bouquet's letter to Gen. Jeffrey Amherst, 1763).

Can't beat 'em?

Create images of indigenous people that colonizers can consume like cannibals. Give them demeaning nicknames like Redskins, a reference to the blood running from their heads that were scalped by bounty hunters. 

Make up stuff about them. Keep telling yourself this makes you stronger; hope that's true.




"6 Misconceptions About Native American People" Teen Vogue on YouTube

I Do Not Have White Guilt, Local Resident Tells Skowhegan School Board. But, I Listen

Nancy Blaisdell Baxter speaking to the school board which has the power to retire the racist mascot of Skowhegan Area High School (SAHS still calls its teams "Indians" amid growing opposition). Baxter cited a historic tour she took recently of the island in the middle of town and suggested "Islanders" would be a good alternate name for the school's many teams. Elementary school principal Jean Pillsbury looks on.

Last night was an unusual school night for me. Emboldened by the prospect of a snow day (5am, just got the call!) I stayed out late enough to join four other women in favor of retiring the racist "Indian" sports mascot of our local high school. I wore my dad's old varsity letter sweater which has no mention of the name nor any caricatures of Native people. I was inspired, not for the first time, by the leadership of Penobscot Tribal Ambassador Maulian Dana who recently sent a letter asking the school board to make a change. I also sent an email to Superintendent Brent Colbry which you can read here.

Before any of us spoke, the Civil Rights Team adviser of one of the board's elementary schools set the tone by explaining what civil rights means, and why they are important. 

The beauty of diversity on display in a hat crafted by fiber artist and wise woman Rainbow Cornelia.

My sister and I had just visited a nearby art gallery to see an impressive group show Color: Explorations in Fiber. One of the artists was MSAD#54 board member Peggy Lovejoy, and she came over before the meeting got underway to give us a hug. Peggy described some of the harassment and threats she's received over the years from Skowhegan "Pride" group members who resent her advocacy for moving into the 21st century and leaving emblematic racism behind. We said we were sorry she had to go through that; Peggy is a petite retired Kindergarten teacher.

First to speak from our team was booster mom Julie Cooke. She described the tension her daughter, a senior athlete at SAHS, has experienced over the racist name. They bought a special softball helmet for her so that she would not have to wear one that said "Indians" on it. Her friends stopped wearing their team t-shirts because whoever ordered them had "Indian Pride" printed on the shirts without consulting the team.

Julie said she hoped the board would do the right thing so her daughter could finish out her high school athletic career without the divisive issue of racism hanging overhead.

Later, in the parking lot, Julie told us that the booster moms are overwhelmingly in favor of changing the team name, for the good of their kids. A couple of diehard coaches are, in her opinion, the ones standing in the way.

Julie was super speaking to the board, and her mom Ann MacMichael followed up with an elder woman's reflections: how it is hard sometimes to change, and how she's learned to let go. She hopes her granddaughter and all students will benefit from changing the team name.

Here is the text of my sister Hope Savage's remarks to the MSAD#54 board last night, which were spot on. (Emphasis and links added by me.)

I do not have white guilt. 

I did not commit the atrocities my ancestors enacted by using other human beings for slaves, neither did any of you on the school board. 

I am not personally responsible for committing deliberate genocide of Native Americans. Neither are any of you in this room today. 

I did not offer a bounty for Native American scalps, nor have I ever scalped a Native American. Neither have any of you here tonight, I’m willing to bet. 

I have never stolen Native children from their parents and put them in boarding schools in order to educate the Indian out of them and I know this school board hasn’t either.  

I have never killed a Native American in order to take their land as my own. I seriously doubt anyone here tonight has done so or would ever do so. 

Yet I, as you do, have some responsibility here. Because my ancestors benefited greatly by the abuse of other humans. This benefit of lands and political power gained by the slaughter are still mine...and yours. The Native children removed from their families, denied the right to their own culture, their mouths washed out with soap if they spoke in their language they learned first were not from a long time ago. They are still here today, some in their early 30’s, to tell the stories of their pain. 

It wasn’t that long ago.

And what can I, who never personally injured them, do about that past? Not much!

I can’t change it. I have nothing to offer monetarily that would make up for hundreds of years of abuse and unfair treatment. 

I can’t force our government to honor the treaties made with the Native Americans, which are broken whenever the government wants back what they agreed to give. 

But, I listen!  

Listening is what I have to offer as a descendant of those who murdered, as a descendant of those who raped, of those who stole from the people living here long before we showed up. 

When I was a young mother, my tiny son had a costume for Halloween given to him. It was so he could be an Indian. He looked real cute in that costume, his little blonde head with his feathered headdress and the warpaint we put on him. He was four years old. He’s now 34 years old. My how times have changed! I never thought back then that his costume was racist. Why? Because I didn’t know I was offending anyone, of course.

Until I listened.  

Once I listened, there was no way to not know.

Once I listened, I felt shocked at myself for being so oblivious to the pain of others. No, I didn’t create their pain. But, I poked at it. Made it bleed a little each time I participated in dehumanizing them, turning them into a stereotype. Turning them into a costume. Using them for my amusement and benefit. Do I feel guilty about it? No. Why? Because, once I listened, I changed. So as not to do harm to others for no reason, I changed. I am no longer a person who would have their child imitate an oppressed people for Halloween fun.

I would hate to think how Native American children felt here at Skowhegan High School each time a depiction of their culture was used as a mascot. Humiliated? Probably. Angry? Probably.  

Powerless to stop it? Yes, surely. Because the use of them as mascots wouldn’t be done if they had power to stop it.  

You have the power to stop it, Skowhegan school board. 

You have much to gain by LISTENING.Listen to their ambassadors tell you you’re offending them. Listen when they tell you they don’t feel honored. Listen to what the rest of the country has said as they, one by one, change their offensive mascots. 

Listen: Aunt Jemima syrup doesn’t use a black female slave on their bottles anymore.

Listen: Sambo’s Restaurants stopped using their decor that exaggerated negroid features of Little Black Sambo characters.

Listen: They stopped selling Darkie Toothpaste in 1989. 

Listen: The Frito Bandito , depicting Mexicans as thieves, has been run out of town. 

Listen: You are now the only school in the state of Maine that didn’t LISTEN to how offensive and racist Indian mascots are and act to undo that.

I am still listening today. 

I listened when a member of Skowhegan Indian Pride shared a sniggering joke with board member Jennifer Pelotte Poirier about him still having a scalp towel. 

I listened while that same group provokes, hangs racist signage and tries to counter Indigenous People’s Day celebrations.  

I listened at a reconciliation ceremony held each year in Norridgewock by local tribes to remember the slaughter of women and children by my ancestors. 

I listened to local townspeople rudely tell me it’s none of my business, that I should just leave if I don’t like it, though I have paid taxes to this school district for 15 years and my family has lived here since before this school district and this town began. 

It is time for you to listen. You are on the wrong side of history. 

Listen: The world is changing yet, you steadfastly refuse to change with it. 

Listen: It is no longer acceptable to mock minorities by using them for mascots. 

Listen: Hate crimes went up 17% this year. 

You don’t have to feel guilty about what your ancestors did. But, you surely should feel guilt for being told now that you’re causing harm, and still doing it anyway.

Thank you.

-- Hope Savage, Skowhegan resident 

No one spoke in favor of keeping the mascot at the last high school in Maine still insulting Native people this way. Maybe the tide has turned.

Time For Some Leadership Against Racism #Skowhegan #mepolitics

Screenshot of an exchange between a Skowhegan Area High School coach and a school board member. The depicted item is a vintage artifact of the celebration of genocide against Native people. As historians know, scalping was instituted by white settlers as a way of terrorizing the local Native people and of proving that a bounty was due for their murderers. In case you can't see the image on the towel clearly, it is of a hand clutching a crumpled up scalp with hair on it.

This morning I used my school email account to send a message to the Superintendent in Maine School Administrative District #54. I work in a neighboring district but own a home in Skowhegan near the high school that will eventually step into the 21st century by retiring its racist "Indian" mascot for its sports teams.

My father played football for the high school and I'll wear his vintage letter sweater to the board meeting tonight. There is no Indian on it, and claims of "tradition" and "heritage" supporting this racist mascot are bullshit. My family has paid taxes for several generations to support this school system, an otherwise admirable system that does not deserve this blot on its reputation. 

A young member of my family played freshman football this year for Skowhegan and was good enough to be called up to practice with the varsity squad after the freshman season ended. He was told by coaches that the Indian is not the team mascot. Clearly, the school knows that continuing to identify as "Indians" is unsustainable and unpopular with youth. 

The biggest question is whether the professional educators like Superintendent Colbry will lead the way or if they will continue to acquiesce as white supremacists disrespect and threaten Native women and children with  violence.

To: bcolbry@msad54.org

Dear Superintendent Colbry,

I will be at the board of directors meeting for SAD#54 tonight to deliver a message whose time has come. In particular, I will be calling on you as an educational leader to take a stand and work toward retiring the remnants of SAHS's racist mascot, the "Indian" -- or as some Native people refer to it, the "pretendian."

Here are images I will offer tonight as evidence of the viciously racist nature of the "Indian" brand. This evidence may help you and the board understand the urgency of righting this historical wrong.

These images may help you understand why the American Psychological Association found that the use of American Indian mascots HARMS ALL CHILDREN exposed to them, including those seeing their culture misrepresented. In 2005 the APA called on schools to retire the use of such mascots. That was 13 years ago. 

Penobscot Tribal Ambassador Maulian Dana has received threats to rape her and to do harm to her two school aged daughters because of her vocal opposition to the "Indian" mascot. That's the side you're on. I urge you to find the courage to do the right thing.

Lisa Savage

Skowhegan homeowner and taxpayer

Does Maine Lead The Nation In Retiring Racist School Mascots?

Below is a post I prepared two years ago.

There is a school board meeting this week, Thursday, November 15, 2018, to raise the issue of the need to retire the "Indian" team name and racist caricatures and other crap like scalp towels. The meeting is at 7pm at the Skowhegan Area Middle School and there is a time on the agenda to hear from the public.

As a homeowner and taxpayer in Skowhegan -- now watching the third generation of my family play sports for the town -- I will be there. I hope you can join me if you live in the area. You can spot me because I'll be wearing my dad's vintage varsity letter sweater with a big orange "S" on the chest. My dad was a football player who earned three varsity letters, and  there is no Indian on my dad's sweater. This pretendian nonsense based on tradition is no such thing. That is what I plan to tell the school board.

Time To Retire The Racist Mascot Of Skowhegan High School "Indians" #mepolitics

...

When Skowhegan, Maine began using the Indian mascot, no harm was intended.

People who defend the mascot claim its intent is to "honor" the people of Maine's tribes. But representatives from all four tribes -- Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Micmac -- have told the school board they do not feel honored.

In 2015, it is clear that the institutionalized racism inherent in using native people as team mascots harms us all. Maine's tribal leaders have repeatedly told the school board they are offended by the Indian mascot. Penboscot elder Barry Dana has stated, "Why should I need to explain why I am offended? Shouldn't the fact that I am offended be enough?"

Passamaquoddy elder Madonna Scotomah asked the Skowhegan school board last month why a team or its fans would want to imitate someone else's culture, or consider that imitation an honor?

The American Psychological Association has published research indicating that the use of American Indian mascots harms all children exposed to it, including those seeing their culture misrepresented. In 2005 the APA called on schools to retire the use of such mascots.

A Canadian First Nations man who was successful in getting a youth league football team to change its name from the the Nepean Redskins to the Nepean Eagles. put it this way:

"[racist team names] are the most in-your-face socially acceptable systemic oppression within our society and yet it's used by children's football teams. 

It's not even a gateway drug for racism, it is racism."

You can read more about Ian Campeau's successful effort here.

The Bangor Daily News published this editorial on April 30: 

Let’s end the era of offensive mascots, nicknames

KEVIN BENNETT | BDN

Junior Scott LaFlamme hides from fellow Old Town High School students as they file into the gym before the introduction of the school’s new coyote mascot in April 2006. The school’s former mascot, an Indian, was replaced because it was deemed disrespectful to the Penobscot Indian Nation.

A high school age opponent of the change told reporters in Skowhegan last month that changing the team name would "erase history." As a history major and teacher, I beg to differ. History, in fact, is all about change. Some changes are bad for us while others are beneficial. Let's hope the Skowhegan School Board finds the courage to do the right thing.

When they do  retire the Indian mascot, Maine will become the first state in the U.S. with no racist high school team mascots. Dirigo!