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    Jordann SMay 14, 2017 at 2:42 am

    As a fellow Perspectives Editor on the Scroll, this topic has been on the top of my list of subjects to write about. It seems than Kenny Wang beat me to it! But I do not agree with his position, which was very well written and clearly stated (for that I applaud him). I remember a speaker that came to CCDS from the Pueblo Tribe. When asked about our derogatory mascot, The Indian, he asked, “Which one?” This is what CCDS needs to ask itself. We cannot possibly represent and honor the native people when there are so many different tribes, with different languages and different cultures both past and present and I do wish that Wang had interviewed people of Native descent. It seems that the situation would be different if our mascot was the CCDS “Nig**rs” or the CCDs “Cr**kers,” yet we are okay with Indian (I admit is much better than “Redsk*in,” which the Washington football team somehow coined). The reason which “Viking” and “Knights” are acceptable mostly because those are more mythical and are not so relevant today. When was the last time you’ve walked upon the mighty Viking race of 2017? Native Americans are people, not legends and bedtimes stories. If the word truly is a metaphor, then we need to choose a tribe that we can accurately depict and honor. The Deleware? The Cherokee? And, in all honesty, it does not help that CCDS is a private, wealthy, predominately white school. We do not have any Native students (at least to my knowledge) yet we throw the word “Indian” around as if we have permission to do so. Many tribes still believe that the word is very offensive yet some tribes believe that the word “Indian” is acceptable: this still does not give us the right to use the word for ourselves. And I am very glad we got rid of the Indian mascot, which ran around on the field during Spirit Week, and replaced it with the “Spirit Man” (although we can come up with a better name than that). I always feel as if I’m watching a minstrel show when I see that blow-up tomahawk and fake, red war paint. We should represent native people by at least accurately showing the tribes who used to thrive on this land. I apologize if this response is long. As I said before, I was going to write about this. I may still do so.

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