Editorial: Losing the logo
Daily News Transcript
Norwood, MA
May 2, 2007
DEDHAM - If Anthony "Juju" Mucciaccio thinks it's time to dump the Indian as Dedham High's mascot, then it is definitely time.
A screaming Native American face will be removed from the high school, and students from the school will get to vote for a new mascot this month.
Lest there be any confusion here, the students will vote on whether to keep the Marauder nickname. The school officials have made their own decision on the Indian logo – there was no vote on that.
Mucciaccio, a member of the Dedham High School Boosters Club, agreed with School Superintendent June Doe and high school Principal Alan Winrow the Indian logo should be removed from all sports uniforms and school facilities.
A Native American screaming and being specifically identified as a Marauder, one who roams about and raids in search of plunder, is not what Dedham wants to use as its symbol.
The symbol was created 30 years ago.
Whenever it was adopted, whether it was for shock value, to scare the athletic opponents or whatever the purpose, the symbol reinforces a racist view of Native Americans.
Of course people may not even think of it as [a] racist symbol — but that is exactly the problem, it is so implanted people don't even think about it.
But now the schools have thought of it. And they have done the right thing.
They have stopped picking on another class of human beings as symbols. They are real people.
Real dealings of Dedham residents and Pocumtucks Indians did take place — in the early 1660s, in Dedham, which at that time covered most of the surrounding towns.
The townspeople had a problem because a group of Native Americans settled on land the English settlers defined as part of Dedham. In all, the Native Americans, settled more than 2,000 acres of land within the boundaries of Dedham.
In 1664, they asked John Pynchon of Springfield to arrange a deed — a contract — with the Native Americans so they could acquire the land.
There were two sides to that story and who treated whom fairly and so forth, but there were real, live Pocumtuck Indians involved.
These were everybody's neighbors, the Pocumtuck Indians and the Mohawk Indians who fought the Pocumtucks, and others who lived in the area.
Dedham schools have done the right thing.
Trivializing the importance of American Indians is wrong.