School Issues Newsletter #67

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School Issues Newsletter #67
Date: 12/15/2000 1:30:27 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: jklagge@bev.net
To: jklagge@vt.edu

Click here to view the ShortMascot.doc file attachment

Dear Friends,

After a long silence, caused by busy-ness more than anything else, I'm back on-line with this newsletter. I'm flattered by how appreciative people are of it, and apparently how they miss it (after a while anyway). It has served various purposes of keeping the community informed about school issues, providing more depth than you usually get, airing my own views, and expressing my frustrations about issues. If you do not want to be on this mailing list, please let me know and I'll be happy to remove you.

While newspapers have their important place is presenting public issues, their primary purpose is to get attention and sell subscriptions. That is not always consistent with the best understanding of those public issues. This newsletter provides an alternative to the newspaper in 2 ways: It is my view (not the school board's, and not the newspaper's), so it is not necessarily impartial; and it is more in-depth, since I am not limited by column-inches. (Some of you have complained that these get too long, but others appreciate the details.) I simply do not work in sound-bite or headline-length thoughts--all real issues deserve more than that.

It has been more than a year since I first addressed the mascot issue in this newsletter. My position from the beginning has been and remains that the issue is best discussed and addressed at the school level and through the Diversity Forum. The school board has followed my lead on this. Discussions have been going on in the Diversity Forum since the spring, when coalition members began attending those meetings, and discussions have been going on at BHS since the end of the summer, when there was a forum there. Since then BHS has created a task force to investigate, discuss, and engage the students in discussing the issues. I have said that if I felt that the task force succeeded in its attempts to engage students in thinking about these issues in a fair and open way, I would want to support the outcome of that process. I don't speak for the school board here, and other sb members may feel differently. But I am committed to supporting the process if it runs well. I know the process has been rocky, on both sides, but I have done all could to help smooth that process. And I appreciate the involvement in the task force of many people who are willing to address this issue in an open and constructive manner. I especially appreciate the work of the co-chairs, which have been quite challenging.

Recently I have also added my voice to the discussions by trying to explain why I think the mascot should change. Since I think rational discussion of the issue, as opposed to venting of emotions, has been in short supply, I wanted to add my thinking--not as a person in a position of power trying to pressure the task force, but as a person who has thought a lot about this, wanting to get people thinking. In fact my contribution was a story that I made up. I like stories because they are open to interpretation and so are a good way of provoking discussion. That's what I most want. But stories are also good because they are not judgemental. I think the issue has been surrounded by emotions partly because it has been framed in a judgemental way, and I want to get away from that as much as possible. In this spirit I published a column in "The Conductor" which is an occasional insert in the VT Spectrum, which is a weekly publication for the faculty and staff at VT. (I have attached a copy of this column to this e-mail in case you want to read it. If your computer has trouble receiving attachments, let me know and I will send it in another fashion.) The article is addressed to the faculty and staff because many of them live in the Blacksburg community and I wanted to increase rational dialogue of the issues within the community. My purpose is not to circumvent the task force, which I support, but to add some thoughts to the discussion. So my view about the process for addressing this issue has not changed, but I have added my voice to the discussion.

Many people have wondered whether changing the mascot is already a done deal at the school board level. I have always said that I can't speak for the sb, and the sb has made no decision about this. If the task force makes a recommendation, the sb may or may not act on it. All of that is undetermined at this point. If other sb members feel as I do, then a lot hinges on how well the process goes within the task force. Thus, again, the most important thing is what kind of community dialogue we can have about this. It is amazing to me how extremely strongly people feel on both sides of this issue. I continue to be committed to trying to find a way to address the issue that minimizes antagonism. However, I will be stepping down as sb chair in January, after being chair for 3 years. (I still have 3 more years of my term as a member of the sb however.) The next chair will have the opportunity to set a direction on this issue, so I will not continue to have the same role that I have had.

I want to comment on several issues that have come up in my extensive discussions with people about the mascot issue. As always in these newsletters, one of my main purposes has been to get people to see both sides of an issue, so that whenever and however the issue is ultimately resolved, they can accept what happened. (This has been the biggest difference betwen my "job" as a philosopher, and my role as a sb member--in philosophy you don't have to come to a decision, in politics you do!)

-The strongest (negative) responses I got to the attached article were from people who grew up in Blacksburg, whose children grew up here, and who intend to stay here. They see a distinction between themselves and others who move here and may well move away--transients. Should the voices of the life-long residents have some special weight in this discussion? I suppose it is true that we all form an identity--and we do it in various ways. People who stay in one place for a long time may have an identity more closely associated with (that) place, and with things that are closely associated with that place. More transient people also form identities--but presumably not so much based on place or local associations with that place. Do we have a right to the identity that we have formed for ourselves? I think that strikes to the heart of this issue. Does the fact that some people apparently really and deeply see themselves as Blacksburg Indians give them a special claim on the (retention of that) identity? The column that I attached to this letter directly addresses that. I think there is a sense in which if there is an Indian identity, it is something that should be controlled by Indians, and not appropriated by others. The fact, if it is a fact, that the Irish don't mind having their identity appropriated by Notre Dame doesn't show that it is ok in cases where people do mind having their identity appropriated. One local person who talked to me is herself of Indian heritage, and she said that she feels honored by the mascot. I don't think we can discount that point of view. We have to figure out how to weigh it in the discussion, just as during the civil rights movement there were differences among blacks. The issue is also complicated by the (apparent) fact that the Seminole tribe has allowed Florida State to use its image--for a price. But the fact that some tribes have exacted a price for the use of their identity doesn't mean that others should see it that way. The existence of prostitution doesn't make us doubt the sanctity of sex. (I'm not calling the Seminoles prostitutes--I'm raising the comparison for consideration.)

This issue about appropriation of identity is what has led me to doubt there can be an adequate compromise on this issue. (I mention this in the article.) Even if you try to make all the uses of the mascot respectful, what remains is the use of the mascot at all--and that is the appropriation of someone's identity. Since there is no particular tribe that legally owns the "Indian" identity, there is no one to seek permission from, and it is not really a legal issue, but I hope you can see that it is an issue nonetheless.

Part of the concern (and this is something I don't address in the column) is that any uses of "the Indian" are inevitably stereotyped. That is, they take some aspect and present it as though that is what Indians are like--brave, warlike, persistent, wear feathers, wear face paint, beat drums, have spears, live in tee-pees, use tomahawks, make certain chants. These give students, and people generally (and this is why some see it as an educational issue), the idea that that is what Indians are like--even though there were over 500 different Indian nations; and within any given nation (say, the Shawnees) there were various better and worse individuals--some brave, some not, just as there are in any society; and even though Indians don't live like that now. And even if modern culture now idealizes the older Indian cultures that were virtually wiped out, many living Indians don't want to be seen through that lens. They want to be seen for who they are. You can see how some Indians might differ over this--maybe some don't mind the reminder to the dominant culture that "they" were once "like that". Maybe that is uplifting to some people--I don't want to discount that. But I hope you can see that it is demeaning to many Indians--not because it is worse (or better) than who they are, but because it ignores who they are. I know we Presbyterians don't like people talking about how Presbyterians believe in predestination--even though old John Calvin did. It shows a disregard for the diversity and currency of Presbyterian views. It tries to boil it all down to something that's overly simple and outmoded.

My attempt to add my voice to these discussions at this point in time has not worked out as I had hoped. It has gotten played up as though I am changing paths and "weighing in" on the issue to try to make something happen. Whatever I am doing, I am not trying to throw my weight around in the sense of bully someone. That is the exact opposite of my intention. But perhaps I should have realized that public perception is not always sensitive to personal intention. What has most disappointed me recently is that no one has had any comment on the story that I presented. People only want to react to the conclusion that I drew, and the fact that I drew that conclusion publicly.

I have heard the suggestion that if this were a matter of moving from one mascot to another, that might be more positive than a focus on whether to simply give up a mascot. Although it would be presumptuous to begin choosing a new mascot when the other issue is still under discussion, I hope we can see some value in choosing a new mascot for a new millenium. Why do mascots (even fine ones) have to be eternal? Why can't the Indian have been the BHS mascot for the 20th century, and something else be the new mascot for the 21st century? BHS has moved through several different school buildings over the years. No doubt there was a sadness and some loss of identity then--but we got over it. Granted that there would be a sense of loss and sadness over a change of mascot. That fact could be honored and mourned even. The Indian mascot would not have to be "killed". It could just be retired. After all, each of us hopes to retire when we're 70 years old. Why not the mascot too? And those stuidents who graduated from BHS and identify themselves AS Indians and care about that would still be Indians, I guess. There's no sense in which that can be taken away from them. But new students would stop identifying themselves as Indians.

Thank you for affording me the opportunity to address a difficult issue in a forum that allows me to reflect these difficulties. The newspaper is not apt for that, and so I have tried to create another. I hope you have an enjoyable holiday, and a renewed new year.

Jim Klagge, Chair, and District F representative, Montgomery County School Board.

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