By Anna Beyette ’17, Contributor
It’s a Friday afternoon and you can feel the excitement practically dripping from the air. Everyone in the whole school, from preschoolers up to seniors, sits in anticipation for the Pep Rally. Spirit week has been fun up until this moment, the elaborate costumes, the fun themes, the break from a dreadful routine. You look around the stands and see that no one else looks like you or celebrates the same traditions as you. Then a figure appears on the field. The crowd roars. The figure is meant to portray people from your culture. To your classmates who know very little about your culture, it might seem like an accurate portrayal, but to you it’s nothing more than a caricature, a rude stereotype that your community has tried to break. You sit there hoping that none of your friends or classmates think that you and your family are just human embodiments of the mascot that’s now running the length of the football field. Unsettled, you try to enjoy the rest of the Pep Rally, but the whole time you wish you could stand up and shout: “I am so much more than that!”
How would you feel if this was your experience at the Homecoming Pep Rally? Since I am not Native American, I don’t know how it feels to regularly see cliché, prejudiced representations of my people, but I can imagine that I would be outraged. Homecoming and the Pep Rally are two of the most widely anticipated events of the school year. Students sit on the edge of their seats, chattering eagerly with their friends, waiting for the big moment: the moment the Indian appears. To clarify, this is not an actual First Nations person who represents our school, but a high school volunteer who dresses up in a stereotypical ‘Indian’ costume and runs across the field with a tomahawk and headdress. As the “Mascot Debate” – a national discussion of whether certain racial mascots are appropriate – becomes more public, a conversation about our own school’s traditions has begun to arise.
I have talked with many students about our mascot and our homecoming tradition, and there are many different views on the topic. Some students claim that the mascot is celebratory of the tribes that used to live in this region of the country. Others say that they believe that our mascot is racist and offensive. This year I asked the students who will be dressing up as the Indian for the Pep Rally how they felt about it. “We wanted to do this because we love going to games and showing our classmates support,” our mascot volunteer told me. “We often lead chants and paint up for football and basketball games and it feels like another way to show our teammates that we appreciate all their athletic accomplishments”. While I appreciate the school spirit and effort to support and show pride for the athleticism and commitment of our sport teams, I wonder if perhaps in this tradition we are losing sight of Country Day’s core virtues.
This homecoming season I hope that students really think about what our school is doing and saying when we march a student dressed as an Indian across the football field. I encourage my fellow students to think not only about supporting our teams, but also about how it would feel if it was our culture that was stereotyped as a mascot. Most of us will never have to deal with seeing our race and culture portrayed as a mascot, but, if we did, I am quite certain we would be infuriated. Why would it be any different for a Native American seeing our mascot?
As one of the most highly revered schools in Cincinnati, Country Day has an opportunity – and perhaps a responsibility – to be a prominent voice on this issue. From the moment we started attending Country Day we students are taught about the 5 core virtues: respect, responsibility, integrity, compassion, and courage. These, if nothing else, should be what we remember from our education here. Yet our mascot and our traditions do not reflect these principles. I do not believe that we are being respectful of the 562 remaining Native Tribes in the United States. Country Day is an incredible community, and above all I am proud that my school is a conscious community. I believe that it is very important for us to show our pride in our teams and in our school and I don’t think we should stop celebrating our amazing community. But I do think there are ways to show our support and still be respectful. We are an institution full of smart, capable, students and I am positive that we can think of ways to uphold our traditions while still being compassionate. As the nation continues its debate about mascots I hope that Country Day reflects on what we want to stand for, and whether or not our mascot and traditions uphold our values.
