Re: Tonighjt June 11 Watch The NBA Half Time For A Redskins Protest of Racism
Citation? I've seen that claim twice without citation.
Anyway, it's not the first time a HS had a racist name that needed to be changed.
Tommy Yazzie, superintendent of the Red Mesa school district on the Navajo Nation reservation, grew up when Navajo children were forced into boarding schools to disconnect them from their culture. Some were punished for speaking their native language.
Today, he sees environmental issues as the biggest threat to his people.
The high school football team in his district is the Red Mesa Redskins.
"We just don't think that [name] is an issue," Yazzie said. "There are more important things, like busing our kids to school, the water settlement, the land quality, the air that surrounds us. Those are issues we can take sides on."
"Society, they think it's more derogatory because of the recent discussions," Yazzie said. "In its pure form, a lot of Native American men, you go into the sweat lodge with what you've got -- your skin. I don't see it as derogatory."
Neither does Eunice Davidson, a Dakota Sioux who lives on the Spirit Lake reservation in North Dakota. "It more or less shows that they approve of our history," she said.
Just How Many Indians Think "Redskins" Is a Slur? | NBC4 Washington
Six months after Wiscasset High School became the Wolverines, the varsity boys basketball team showed up for a home game wearing t–shirts featuring the school’s old mascot.
When the players walked into the gym wearing white t‐shirts emblazoned with the word Redskins, the crowd gave the team ‒ and the t-shirts ‒ a standing ovation.
The game in January 2012 provided the citizens of Wiscasset, a small town on the Maine coast, one last chance to cheer for a controversial mascot that many considered an important link to the community’s past.
After months of contentious debate, the regional school board voted in January 2011 to drop the name, siding with those in the community who considered the moniker a racist anachronism over the majority of Wiscasset residents who favored tradition.
“Some felt like it was the last piece of the past they were hanging onto,” said Wiscasset High School principal Deb Taylor, a 1989 graduate of the school. “The power of the desire to go back to the past is very strong.”
Though the school has been officially represented by a red and black wolverine for nearly two years, some in the community have refused to let go of the Redskins.
The Other Redskins
Red Mesa High School (Teec Nos Pos, AZ) Home - MaxPreps.com
