WLC, Merrimack should keep their sports team symbols
NASHUA TELEGRAPH
OPINION: John Bachman
Published: Sunday, July 1, 2007
The New England Anti-Mascot Coalition has demanded Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative High School and Merrimack High School change their sports team symbols.
The NEAMC invokes inflammatory rhetoric to support its position claiming WLC’s Indian Warrior and Merrimack’s Tomahawk are racist.
Tossing the “r” word into the discussion has become a weapon of mass extortion by various pinheads seeking to impose their will on society. The symbols aren’t racist and aren’t demeaning to any groups.
Consider why schools select mascots in the first place. It is mostly a competitive thing, as sports and other teams want a symbol of strength, courage and determination. No one ever picks bunnies, amoebas or anything French as their mascot. They choose strong symbols, ones that evoke pride and confidence.
Is Bishop Guertin’s symbol, the cardinal, anti-bird? No, the cardinal wears a beautiful disguise over the toughness that allows it to endure our winters rather than seeking warmer climes with the snowbirds.
The cardinal is also the West Virginia state bird, so is its choice anti-West Virginian? This Mountaineer takes no offense.
Is Milford’s Spartan anti-Greek? How about Nashua South’s Purple Panther? Anti-cat or anti-colorful, or both? No on all counts.
The Spartans were tough, brave, highly skilled military men, the Special Forces of their time. Panthers of all hues evoke images of cunning, strength and fierceness.
These are all attributes that competitors want associated with their teams. They seek a reflection of the limelight of their mascot choice, not to cast aspersions on them.
No, there is no racism in the use of these symbols. I suspect the NEAMC isn’t anti-symbol, but rather, anti-strong image, and chose the “Native American” images because they are emotionally charged. Their rhetoric gives them away.
NEAMC director Peter Sanfacon described his battle with the Rochester School Board this way: “I was the sole voice of reason in a town of isolationists, naive zealots and ignorant, small-town do-gooders.”
Yup, that’s the voice of reason, all right.
I suppose Linda Draper, athletics director at Wilton-Lyndeborough, is one of those “ignorant, small-town do-gooders” when she denied the WLC Warrior is racist. She thinks their warrior symbol is regal. She is correct.
Merrimack’s symbol is the tomahawk, a tool used in hunting and battle by the “Descendents of the Original American Peoples” and others. Many early peoples on all continents used ax-like tools fabricated from sharp rocks and bound to a sturdy handle with animal tendons. The ax users became proficient in bringing down game and fending off invaders.
Such tools appropriately fit the needs of competitors to associate themselves with strength, skill and courage. There is nothing racist about it.
The NEAMC strums the heartstrings of those who feel remorse for the ills that befell the natives when Europeans arrived here. Yes, hardships were plentiful on both sides, and injustices occurred, again on both sides. Ancient and modern history abounds in conflicts when cultures clashed.
Misunderstanding, distrust, greed and ambition result in atrocities when cultures can’t blend. For eons, peoples have fallen on hard times whenever a new group moved in and prospered. It has been so since Homo sapiens migrated from Africa and displaced the European Neanderthals.
What happened here four centuries ago was another such unfortunate but unavoidable case. No one beats their breasts over the hard times the European colonists endured, most of them dying of dysentery and other horrible diseases for decades before gaining a foothold.
The natives who were already here are seen as innocent victims of European aggression. One can easily debate the justice of those events, but they should have no bearing on the mascot symbols used today, for we have no dog in this fight.When teams adopt “Descendent of the Original American Peoples” terms as their mascot, they are bestowing an acknowledgement of respect and admiration, not racist insult.
The Wilton-Lyndeborough Warrior is a symbol of courage, strength and skill in the support of his peoples. The Merrimack Tomahawk is a symbol of a simple weapon used with great effect by skillful hunters and warriors down through the ages.
Strength, bravery and the skillful use of weapons are very much a part of our times in this dangerous world. Keep them.
Those who share the NEAMC’s view actually are demonstrating their disdain for these characteristics. In their view, courage, strength and battle skills are things to be shunned, as though they are somehow unclean. Luckily, our young competitors know better.
John Bachman is an Amherst businessman and freelance columnist. E-mail him at John@anatek.mv.com.