Picture this: Back in high school, you were the butt of everyone’s jokes. You were, on a daily basis, harassed, bullied, laughed at, and sabotaged.
Your locker was rigged at least once a week so that when you opened it, books flew out and fell on your head. There was nowhere to hide. Every corner of that school was occupied by bullies’ stooges who were only too happy to get in good with the class cognoscenti by doing their bidding at your expense.
Now, here it is, 20 years later and some of these people have guilty consciences. They’re older, and they’re beginning to realize the damage they did to you. Olive branches are extended from all four corners of the globe. You’re asked to take part on reunion committees, you’re invited to class gatherings you’d have had to pay to get into while you were in school. Everyone makes these concerted efforts in hopes that the present will rub out the past.
But that’s not how it works. More often than not, you — and those who suffered similar fates — end up asking “OK, but what are you going to do to get those four years back for me? You ruined my adolescence and my high school experience, and I’m never going to get those years back. You don’t get off that easily. I’ll decide whether your new-found ‘respect’ has any meaning to me.”
The metaphor might not be 100 percent reflective of the idea of using Native American symbols as high school mascots, but I hope you see where I’m going here.
I’ve heard this from Blacks, Jews, Native Americans … and all of them say the same thing: that those who oppress don’t get to decide whether what they say, or how they say it, is seen as either apologetic or respectful to those who have been oppressed. None. And even though some might be OK with the odd bit of cultural appropriation (and who really knows why?), by and large, people who have gone through history with bull’s eyes on their backs are insulted by any attempt by those who have oppressed them to define what it means to “respect” them now.
I have to say that view, expressed to me long ago during an interview with the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness, is also my view. This isn’t to say I don’t believe, or take seriously, the people who say that these mascots were born out of respect for their Native American ancestors. I do. It’s just that the other side of that argument is much more compelling — at least to me.
As we should all know by now, the American Indian was abominably treated by the European settlers who came over here in droves beginning in the 1400s. And has it been that much different in the years of so-called “enlightenment,” which I would define as “since we in the U.S. have had to come face to face with what we did to the Native Americans?”
I’d say no. Look at how long it took for the football franchise in Washington to discard the blatantly-racist name “Redskins.” Look at the fuss that erupted when the Cleveland baseball franchise changed the name from “Indians” to “Guardians.” Or the refusal, either in Atlanta or Tallahassee, to ditch the “Tomahawk Chop.”
This has been labeled, by those too slow to understand the underlying problem, “cancel culture,” and that buffoon “My Pillow” guy is all over my TV leading the way. He can go straight to … well … never mind.
It’s not “cancel culture” to admit that cultural appropriation can be racist. You can roll your eyes all you want at Elizabeth Warren’s silly claim that she was about one-one hundredth Indian. But to call her “Pocahontas” as a derisive insult is almost as blatantly racist as calling your team the “Redskins” in the 21st century.
This brings us to the Saugus Sachem and the magnificent Indian head that stands as the town’s logo. I say “magnificent” because it is a true work of art. And I am sure that Selectwoman Corrinne Riley, and others from the town, are sincere when they say that the nickname, and the symbol, are meant as gestures of respect to the Native American heritage of the town. I’m sure they’re not ridiculing anyone.
But here again, we go back to the idea that descendants of European settlers — and most of us are — do not have the right to define the ways in which they show their respect to those their ancestors (in a general sense) may have oppressed in the past. Those who may have had ancestors who were systematically oppressed, enslaved, killed, or discriminated against, have an entirely different definition of that word as it pertains to them.
I’m afraid we’re going to have to get used to that. Because that reality isn’t going to change any time soon.
