|
Jaxson "Biscuit"
Hicks, 11, and his mother, Margaret Hicks, both of the Shawnee
Tribe, spoke out against the Union school district's use of
the R-word as a sports mascot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Photo courtesy
of Margaret Hicks)
|
While much publicity surrounds professional sports teams with Native
American-themed mascots, the front lines of the battle lie in high
schools.
Ohio, a state with no federally recognized reservations, takes
the lead at well over 100 such mascots, according to MascotDB,
a database of over 50,000 high school, college and professional
sports team names.
According to the Dayton News, Ohio also has the greatest number
of schools using the R-word as their mascot; among them is Wapakoneta
High School, which has weathered many attempts to drop the R-word
as its mascot.
Its this weird hill that people are dying on here,
said Krissie Wells, 34, an alumni of Wapakoneta High School in the
little town of Wapakoneta, about 180 miles southwest of Cleveland.
Aaron Rex, superintendent of Wapakoneta schools, released a statement
this week in response to the Washington NFL teams name change
and the schools use of the R-word.
At Wapakoneta we have always believed that our representation
of Native Americans and their history in our area has been done
with a great deal of respect. Our community was once a place inhabited
by many Indian tribes with the last being the Shawnee under the
leadership of Chief Black Hoof. In the last few years we have redesigned
our school logo and feel that it has been done keeping the idea
of respect and history in mind. Wapakoneta has a great deal to be
proud of, as you know. Native American history is one piece of what
makes our town one of the best small towns in Ohio.
|
Wapakoneta historical
sign (Photo by J. Stephen Conn)
|
Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, whose people
were removed from the area around Wapakoneta in 1831, sent a tweet
responding to Rexs statement published in the Lima News.
You said, Our community was once a place inhabited
by many Indian tribes with the last being the Shawnee under the
leadership of Chief Black Hoof. The office of Chief of the
Wapakoneta Shawnee is now me. Ask us our opinion 1st, he wrote.
Barnes has not yet received a response from Wapakoneta school leadership.
How can they say theyre honoring us if they wont
even speak to us? Barnes asked.
In a statement describing the tribes position on mascots
and the Washington football teams decision to drop use of
the R-word, Barnes wrote, We are not mascots. We are living
cultures and languages with histories going back thousands of years.
Our stories are a thousand-fold, filled with wondrous stories of
our ancestors and our relationship to the land. It is in this way
we want people to know us, not as an emblem on a hat.
Wapakoneta is holy ground for us; it is where Chief Black
Hoof died, Barnes said.
|
Ben Barnes, chief of
the Shawnee Tribe (Photo courtesy of Ben Barnes)
|
Chief Black Hoof supported peace with the Americans and represented
the Shawnees at the signing of the 1795 Treaty of Greenville in
which the Shawnee and other tribes relinquished claim to lands south
and east of a boundary near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. Black
Hoof opposed the tribes forced removal in 1831 from lands
surrounding Wapakoneta to Kansas and later to Oklahoma as part of
the 1830 Indian Removal Act. He died in Wapakoneta before the removal
order was carried out.
Margaret Hicks and her son Jaxson Biscuit Hicks, 11,
of the Shawnee tribe, are descendants of Chief Black Hoof. They
live in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The R-word is an insult; using it to honor us is actually like
celebrating our removal and all the horrible things that happened
to our people, Margaret Hicks said.
Jaxson recently spoke to members of the Union public school board
in Tulsa about their use of the R-word for a team mascot. Union
public schools formed a committee including Native representatives
to review their use of the mascot.
I wouldnt want to buy school merch with the R-word;
I wouldnt sing the school song. I would feel ashamed; the
R word is wrong, Jaxson said.
Chief Black Hoof was Jaxsons great, great, great, great grandfather.
Black Hoof descendants maintain a family Facebook page to stay in
touch, according to Margaret Hicks.
We had a virtual discussion about Wapakonetas claims
that they are honoring us. One of our elders said, They obviously
dont care about us since theyve never bothered to reach
out to us, Hicks said.
Schools are an essential part of the public discussion surrounding
the use of Native mascots, according to Cynthia Connolly, citizen
of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.
Connolly lives in Cleveland and is on the board of the Lake Erie
Native American Council. The Council has joined with the Committee
of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance and the American Indian Movement
of Ohio to create the Cleveland Indigenous Coalition. The coalition
is calling for the Cleveland baseball team to drop its mascot and
is reaching out to schools to follow suit.
Schools think they are honoring the memory of Native people
and educating the community through the use of mascots, she
said.
|
Cynthia Connolly of the
Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (Photo by Tom Lewis)
|
The practice, however, reflects the woefully inadequate curriculum
regarding Native Americans taught in most of the countrys
K-12 schools, according to Connolly.
According to Illuminatives Becoming Visible
report, 87 percent of state level history standards fail to cover
Native peoples history in a post-1900 context, she said.
Illuminative is a Native-led
nonprofit initiative designed to increase the visibility of
and challenge the negative narrative about Native nations people.
We just disappear in school curriculum after 1900; we are
never talked about through a modern lens, Connolly said.
Curriculum is at the heart of the fight, she said. They will
never honor or adequately represent over 500 federally recognized
tribes through the use of a mascot.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights agrees. On Friday, organization
members passed a resolution that reads in part, Native mascots
inhibit accurate understanding of experiences of Native Americans
and encourages biases against them, contrary to their rich and diverse
history.
Cleveland Indigenous Coalition members are working to get support
from community organizations and the Cleveland City Council in calling
for the Cleveland Indians baseball team to drop its mascot.
Connolly notes that the Cleveland City Council recently voted
to declare racism a public health crisis.
If racism is a public health crisis, they need to get serious
about honoring that legislation and support a name change for the
baseball team, she said.
The Cleveland baseball team released a statement
July 4 saying it is in discussions about changing the mascot name.
Schools are beginning to reach out to the coalition for advice
regarding their Native mascots, according to Connolly.
Professional teams need to recognize the type of influence
they have in the larger community. By retaining these names, they
are condoning their use, creating a negative atmosphere in schools
and undermining the educational experience for both Native and non-Native
students, Connolly said.
Members of the Wapakoneta community have been arguing about the appropriateness
of the school mascot for years, according to Wells.
Someone posted Chief Barnes tweet on the community
Facebook page; people questioned if he really represented the tribe.
They basically just doubled down on their insistence that the R-word
honors the tribe; they eventually deleted his tweet, she said.
Indian Country Today sent an email to Wapakoneta school superintendent
Rex asking if he or the school board is interested in speaking with
Chief Barnes or Margaret and Jaxson Hicks about the future of the
schools mascot.
|
Members of the Committee
of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance march during Cleveland
Indians opening day. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember, File)
|
Rex declined to be interviewed on the phone but sent an email.
He wrote in part, In a way to recognize and honor the Indian
history in our area, the forefathers of Wapakoneta created a mascot
that would stand for pride, honor and courage. These are all qualities
that someone would want in a person who would graduate from our
school district. Our town has always done its best to pay homage
to the Native American culture and influence that makes our town
and our school district what they are today.
Neither the Cleveland baseball team nor the Wapakoneta school district
have reached out to members of the Native American community, according
to Connolly, Barnes and Hicks.
I would love to have a meaningful conversation with them;
we could do a Zoom call. Im a level-headed person, and I think
wed come to a wonderful understanding, Hicks said.
For supporters of the Wapakoneta mascot, its all about nostalgia,
according to Wells.
Theyve been ignoring calls to drop the name for decades.
I think the school board just needs to do whats right and
change the name, she said.
But what are the possible alternatives?
She noted that astronaut Neil Armstrong was born in Wapakoneta;
Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon during the 1969
Apollo 11 Mission.
People here are crazy proud of Neil Armstrong, she
said.
They could change the name to the moon walkers; how cool
would that be? Wells said.
|
Shawnee Tribe statement
regarding Native sports mascots
|
Mary Annette Pember, a citizen of the Red Cliff Ojibwe tribe,
is a national correspondent for Indian Country Today.
IllumiNative
Created and led by Native peoples, IllumiNative is a new
nonprofit initiative designed to increase the visibility of
and challenge the negative narrative about Native Nations
and peoples in American society.
https://illuminatives.org/
|