Sometimes, even though it will be painful, you have to rip the Band-Aid off to let healing progress.
The Thompson R2-J School District’s Board of Directors deserves praise for doing just that Thursday night when they firmly stated that the district must and will change the mascots at two Loveland schools that are seen as demeaning to Native Americans.
The Loveland High School Indians and Bill Reed Middle School Warriors mascots have been the subject of many concerns expressed over the years.
The district made some modifications — the Bill Reed Redskins became the Warriors in 1995 and the Loveland High Indian logo has been changed to make it less overtly racist.
But those changes never went far enough to address the problem.
Thursday night at a study session, school board members said the mascots must go, and said they would take formal action Sept. 2.
They said these types of stereotypical mascots are hurtful to Native American students and promote racism among non-native students and community members.
“This is definitely hurting people. This is definitely stereotyping. It just doesn’t, in my mind, have a place anymore,” board member Paul Bankes said Thursday.
All the district’s work to stop racism would ring hollow had they let the long-debated mascots remain.
The National Congress of American Indians, which has been working since 1968 to educate people on why Native American mascots should not be used, explains on its website: “The intolerance and harm promoted by these ‘Indian’ sports mascots, logos, or symbols, have very real consequences for Native people. Specifically, rather than honoring Native peoples, these caricatures and stereotypes are harmful, perpetuate negative stereotypes of America’s first peoples, and contribute to a disregard for the personhood of Native peoples.”
The organization said it’s been nearly 60 years since a professional sports team established a new mascot that used racial stereotypes in their names and imagery. Fifteen years ago the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) established a policy to remove Indian mascots.
More than 2,000 “Indian” references in sports have been eliminated during the past 35 years, but nearly 1,000 remain, the organization said.
Recently the professional football team in Washington, D.C., has dropped the Redskins mascot. “At the local community level, 28 high schools in 18 states that have dropped the ‘R’ word as their mascot’s name in the last 25 years,” according to the National Congress of American Indians.
Most members of the two Loveland schools’ communities have embraced the Native American mascots without meaning any harm. But knowing now that they cause offense and pain, it is time to change them.
What’s next? Now the fun begins. The school district, and in particular the students, staff and alumni of the affected schools, have a chance to find meaningful new mascots for the 21st century and to start new traditions.
Colorado has some particularly creative mascots, such as the Brush Beetdiggers, the Rocky Ford Meloneers, the Clear Creek Golddiggers, the Alamosa Mean Moose or the Aspen Skiers.
Loveland High School Lakers has a nice ring to it for the school on the north shore of the city’s namesake lake. Or perhaps the schools deserve a name with heart.
But that’s for the school communities to decide.
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August 23, 2020 at 08:38PM
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Editorial: Much-needed mascot change could be fun - Loveland Reporter-Herald
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