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.

A Perfect Storm Of U.S. Political Extremism, Calmed By Homegrown Indigenous Wisdom

The story of what happened between MAGA hats and Native elders in our nation's capital last week turns out to be weirder than my post yesterday indicated.

A perfect storm of U.S. political extremism was brewing on January 18 at the Lincoln memorial.

First of all, Native people had come to Washington for the first ever Indigenous Peoples March. Organizing under the climate change slogan, "If the waters are rising, then so must we," and bringing attention to the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, their presence was healing and wise. You can read coverage of that event here.

Smoke dance another angle. The moves my relatives! Those moves! #IPMDC19 #IndigenousPeoplesMarch pic.twitter.com/Ulqp8TfFyV

— Prairie Rose (@msprairierose) January 18, 2019

Today we remember the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. #IndigenousPeoplesMarch #IPMDC19 #WaterIsLife pic.twitter.com/icU7csfV78

— PFAW (@peoplefor) January 18, 201

Next, a radical Christian group called Black Hebrew Israelites -- which the Southern Poverty Law Center tracks as a hate group -- began preaching their aggressive brand of monotheism. You can see them and hear them in this video made on January 18.

You can hear them mocking Native people for "worshiping totem poles" (?!), eagles, buffalo and other forms of what they characterize as "idolatry."

They also claim Natives lost their land because of their incorrect spiritual practices and beliefs (which the Israelites give every indication of near total ignorance of).

Screenshot from video

A couple of women approach them and clap back. One is led gently away by an elder woman. The other resists another woman's attempt to turn her away. She persists offering education and a reasoned argument until the Israelites begin dissing her for being a female who uses her voice.

Meanwhile, a knot of MAGA hat boys is gathering; they have been bused in from Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School to attend an annual event aimed at denying women and girls access to reproductive health care.

As the Israelite group and the MAGA hats become more confrontational and agitated, Native elder Nathan Phillips steps between the two groups with his drum. According to his own account, he attempts to climb the steps of the Lincoln memorial intending to pray from that vantage point, but he is blogged by a grinning 16 year old who won't let him pass.

Nathan keeps drumming and is joined by another drummer as the crowd of boys chant "build the wall" and jump around mocking the Native prayer song demonstration. They also offer their political views, as nurtured by their politicized religious education.

Here is another infuriating clip from the MAGA mob of kids from #CovingtonCatholic

An indigenous man politely reminds them they are on stolen land and a student responds, “Land gets stolen. That’s how it works. It’s the way of the world.” via @ka_ya11 IG #IndigenousPeoplesMarch pic.twitter.com/SYun9wkzpY

— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) January 19, 2019

Some viewers say they see chaperones behind the large group of boys.

So we have religious fanatics, white supremacists, and Native people still in possession of their non-coercive system of spiritual beliefs. An elder peacekeeper who was in the military during the Vietnam War era and who doesn't believe in walls, doesn't believe in prisons. (Thank you, Nathan Phillips.)

Photo credit: Perez Hilton

Some of the questions I'm left with: who bought all the matching MAGA gear for the teenage boys? Why weren't they in school on a Friday?

Who knew I would find common ground with a group preaching that I'm headed for eternal damnation because I don't worship Yahweh? (The Hebrew Israelites are angry, as I am, about the federal government shutdown.)

A more comprehensive account of the day with additional videos can be seen here on Indian Country Today.